Someone young asked me, "what was Coltrane like"?

I was talking to Charles and he told me that he, like I, only slept for two hours at a time.

Then we had to get up, whether we needed to or not, and pee. Or drink. Then pee again.

He showed me the article where it said that poor sleep is the first sign of Alzheimer's. We laughed.

What I mean is that there are these intervals to restlessness. It's like my love of the stranger girl

who works the counter at the fruit market. No need surrendering the future to the rhapsody of the present. and

since craziness will follow me  anyways, why bother defending it: The orange moon is like the pitcher of Tang, only

that the pitcher of Tang glistens and huge bulbs  of condensation drip down the handle. Show me

a moon with fingers; show me one with a cool handle and I will love it. I will drag it through the hot nights of Blues.

I will string it along (the head of it for hours) from the Vanguard to Japan. You watch me, I will

be so tender with it as it blisters and bobs.  What is anything like nowadays with the music machines of

truth so far away from the clicks of falsehood. Why are all the moist p***y's of the past  as dry

as un-salivated reeds? I use to belong to a jazz club in high school. We had sweaters and plastic rings

we pledged our allegiance to. Joanne looked so cute, not liking jazz. The tall boy, Henry, played

the air bass against the side of the metal lockers. I, the loneliest , was more gradual. I fell in love with

spaces and time and you would know this if you saw how my furniture sits so far from the wall (so says my first

cousin who was visiting for fathers day). "Your living room 'is' fucked up" my sister chimed. But i'm a revolutionary.

the space between the furniture and wall is where Einstein lives. It's the fleshy space where Hank Mobley

would crawl had he not taken up residence in that subway. It's the space where BOP became so horizontal

you had to use whatever available brass you had to drive it's demons back into the sea. It was where

blood and heroin mixed and someone dark said, "damn, that's some good s**t"!

I don't know who said it.

Pick any name from the multitude.

Reviews

[emmajoy]

Some of the names went way ahead or behind me.. research noted.. but oh the feel of this! You create time in distance past, pull away veils and one hears the music, sees the people.. and more than likely line the night with rushes across the hallway then return for yet another 'wet', whether be warm, wet or just drinkable!
That Einstein must be your hip cousin, staying even now, the secretly invited guest who knows how you think.. genius, the two of you. As to the ending.. reminds me of wonderful black and white movies.. and music and smoke and.. how you pen a story makes my dreams glitter!

Can I add, Sidney Bechet, is that allowed.. probably not but have a thing about 'Les Oignons'!

Oh yes, very fine writing, dana.

[h d e rushin]

ohh yeah Sidney Bechet playing in New Orleans that soprano sax....I can still hear that sound....thanks love for remembering....,dana

[W.k.kortas]

I think the wise erin-cliberto has hit upon something with the citing of the Beats, and I suspect it is not an accident. There are those nods to fixed time and place, to Tang and plastic rings, but it is not some sad elegy to what was but more of the bittersweet realization that time is never fixed, never static, and even those things that were of such times are malleable things, changing as our perception changes and ages. This piece strikes me as the somewhat resigned and begrudging realization that forever is a damn transient thing.

[Corset]

When I was little I was going to be an Astronaut, which then turned into a veterinary, which changed into a cop, which turned into a wife to young to be a wife and then a mother, which turned into whatever would put a roof over our heads without the aid of a father. In otherwise , I became flexible as the gymnast that wanted to be after my dancer days that would never come either, but flexible is ok, until you cant really touch your toes without toppling over...what do you wish to be when what you were forced to be can no longer be accomplished, how about let's be loved.

[h d e rushin]

I too wanted to be an Astronaut. I just loved the name Buzz...We all did. But the myths we celebrate are only myths if we give up our flesh. I was caught shimmying into my mothers girdle trying to imagine myself in a space suite.......the rest is history....love you...dana

[Tony Jordan]

Que sera sera Dana. Leaving pieces of art like this will immortalise.

[h d e rushin]

love you tony....thanks for stopping by to visit me....dana

[Tony Jordan]

welcome my friend.
take care

[jacob erin-cilberto]

geez, you are a Beat poet in the now...this is like the stuff i read in 1970 that started me writing...
jazzy piece...with all the instruments having a personality of their own...but contributing to the cause, and yes, some really good s**t, man...

uh oh...i am having trouble sleeping lately...

so if i forget to tell you how good this poem was, let me say it now.
j.

[h d e rushin]

I try to tell anyone who will listen just how Enlightening the 60's and the 70's were. Think about it..Picasso, Plath, Sexton, Lowell, Ginsburg, Coltrane, Miles, Hank, Brown, Joplin, Degas, Kennedy, Hendrix were all alive at the same time...it's hard to imagine that.....thanks dear brother for your continued inspiration./ dana