Shamelessly reblogging this one from last summer for Jazz night at dVerse.
“There is a human wildness held beneath the skin that finds all barriers brutishly unbearable”
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
BREAK DOWN
The nightmare’s voice
fills up your silence with jazz
MAD JAZZ
promises to free
up your body
fading the film to b l a c k
wipe clean your slate
choose the s w i r l i n g horns
the
C
A
S
C
A
D
I
N
G
questions
that shred
that trembling
barbed wire
against the Parrish sky
stretch out the wings
you never knew you had
stand upon the window
ledge
calling out
to the stars in their
own language
Fly beyond
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
Posting for dVerse Jazz Poetry with Amaya.
I’d love to know the language of the stars and maybe we all do but don’t know it.
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Ya know, Frank, I figure that’s one of the things we get in the next life. That and our ‘real’ names. Those are the elusive things that seem just out of reach.
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Love the wildness in this… jazz can do that to you, make wings grow I think
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Exactly! That might explain why jazz is one of the few constants in my life over the years. Fell in love at 15 – never looked back. Although, I do have this little affair on the side with Blues 😉
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I don’t know how I missed this the first time! The form is wonderfully dizzying, and the words are a definite jazz solo done as lyrics. Be-a-utiful, Jilly! Finger snapping!
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Thanks, Charley!
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Oh, wow. Very good. Love the way you make the words dance.
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Thanks! Not an easy thing to do on WP. 🙂
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Beautiful in form, wild and free like the stars ~ This is superb Jilly!
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Thank you! Thank you!
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Oh yeah, Jilly, definitely got down with this one. I never knew you could trust a nightmare and that you could be wiped black clean, and when you are the barbed wire is torn and that you had wings all along. But I trust your MAD JAZZ.
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Crazy mad jazz! Thanks, Amaya!
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gosh – you flew with this one – patterned erraticism (if there is such a word)
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Erraticism! I like that word! Thanks
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seemingly it exists too but have never used it in all these (not saying how many) years…until now
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Perhaps we should apply it to our poetry! 🙂
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Fabulous jazz, Jilly…those cascading questions and stretching wings!
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Thank you, Lynn!
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This is wonderful. I love how the poem cascaded down the page.
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Thanks, Sherry!
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As wild a verbal improve as any Jazz solo I’ve heard–on any instrument. Perfecto!
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🙂 Thank you! Verbal improv – that defines the craziness of poetry.
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Untethered, unbound, calling out to the stars… lovely sentiment.
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Thanks, Barry. I know you get the jazz, my friend 🙂
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