"What Jazz Isn't"
       

Warm nights with the shades drawn and windows open,
an elegant dinner with a ladyfriend in a cocktail dress,
a world of people doing the lindy hop in zoot suits,

or slick guys on street corners ducking cops, pimping downtime.
Nor is it shared needles or double highballs
and all-night bashes—not only that, at least.

None of that movie fill about angry young men
going further out at midnight—always midnight,
as if jazz musicians never went to bed early during the week,

never mowed the lawn or bought certificates of deposit.
As if they weren't bored like you and me most times.
As if they all wore funny hats. Once

jazz was simply something with other people
you couldn't do alone. It was good metaphor like good wine,
or an idea like waves on clear days.

It was the abstract neo-pre-modern something,
only in scales and chords. Or playing sides with other guys
who understood—cats, if you must.

What is jazz now? As Chairman Mao said
about the French revolution,
it' s too soon to tell. Will it become again

some new animal, eyes shining in light
from new stars, the thing you least expect
could survive on such lean pickings, the thing you most

can't name without giving it away?

Tweet
Copyright © 2019 Richard Terrill All rights reserved
from New Letters
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission