| Author | Message | ||
     Chrishayden "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 906 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A |
http://www.rooknet.com/beatpage/writers/kaufman.html | ||
| Steve_s Regular Poster Username: Steve_s Post Number: 49 Registered: 04-2004 Rating: N/A |
Battle Report One thousand saxophones infiltrate the city, Each with a man inside, Hidden in ordinary cases, labeled FRAGILE. A fleet of trumpets drops their hooks, Inside at the outside. Ten waves of trombones approach the city Under blue cover Of late autumn's neoclassical clouds. Five hundred bassmen, all string feet tall, Beating it back to the bass. One hundred drummers, each with a stick in each hand, The delicate rumble of pianos, moving in. The secret agent, an innocent bystander, Drops a note in the wail box. Five generals, gathered in the gallery, Blowing plans. At last, the secret code is flashed: Now is the time, now is the time. Attack: The sound of jazz. The city falls. Bob Kaufman Moment's Notice Jazz in Poetry & Prose Edited by Art Lange & Nathaniel Mackey pg. 151 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Walking Parker Home Bob Kaufman Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/ Historical sound pictures on New Bird wings People shouts/ boy alto dreams/ Tomorrow's Gold belled pipe of stops and future Blues Times Lurking Hawkins/ shadows of Lester/ realization Bronze fingers --brain extensions seeking trapped sounds Ghetto thoughts/ bandstand courage/ solo flight Nerve-wracked suspicions of newer songs and doubts New York altar city/ black tears/ secret disciples Hammer horn pounding soul marks on unswinging gates Culture gods/ mob sounds/ visions of spikes Panic excursions to tribal Jazz wombs and transfusions Heroin nights of birth/ and soaring/ over boppy new ground. Smothered rage covering pyramids of notes spontaneously exploding Cool revelations/ shrill hopes/ beauty speared into greedy ears Birdland nights on bop mountains, windy saxophone revolutions. Dayrooms of junk/ and melting walls and circling vultures/ Money cancer/ remembered pain/ terror flights/ Death and indestructible existence In that Jazz corner of life Wrapped in a mist of sound His legacy, our Jazz-tinted dawn Wailing in his triumphs of oddly begotten dreams Inviting the nerveless to feel once more That fierce dying of humans consumed In raging fires of Love. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness, copyright © 1965 by Bob Kaufman. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. Bob Kaufman (1925-1986) was a poet primarily associated with the Beat literary movement in San Francisco. His volumes include Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness, Golden Sardine, and The Ancient Rain. |
