HUMBLE ELIJAH

JUST ABOVE BUT SLIGHTLY LOWER THAN DEM

HUMBLE ELIJAH

Jazz Waltz

Thrown upon the tide of modernity:

 An audience is about to witness A new jazz form: 'Hard Bop' raises some eyebrows amongst the old cats who are still on the scene. "Dis 'ere..." Cannonball announces, E flat sax of his all lit up In a smoke-filled club, "... is a jazz waltz." Brother Nat' s horn Plays a foreign fanfare, Proclaiming the second coming, Like a thousand tongues of Energetic Pentecostals. This here's a whole congregation, Of foot-tapping listeners who, In the Spirit, At once Are slain. Timmons plays Gospel harmonies Leads the crowd to Galilee As we pray for a life in 3/4. 3 counts; no rests. Jazz. Period. No clever etiquette No corny grace notes No artificial trills Nor clinical chord progressions Straight jackets are for slave-owners Hear this waltz Of American struggle And you'll be reborn You'll 'fil' the soil 'n Learn to till Landing deep in cotton fields A primeval urge to reinvent Set our ancestors Like driven jazz drumm...

Mirrors

Madonna the Yarnwinder

You crucifix of domesticity, You heavy cross of peasant thread, Sibyl of pain, snatched from my working hands, By a playful babe, Laughing as an innocent, Crying through a chuckle Stroking his fate.