The City Sings a Song of Jazz

The city sings a song of jazz

with softened saxes and gentle guitars

to send us gliding around the curves

of overpasses brunted against the

neon skyline as the moon rises and ripples

among high frozen notes of clouds

as the sun plays its final reprise

on the shaded eyes of skyscrapers

while the users of the streets

play musical chairs--

as some exit, others arrive--

while many can only march in place.

The jazz once sang for a swinging happening

at a fancy club where memories of jet-setters are left

as ring stains on bars and tables.  The fog of

martini-laden nights croons to us--who were too

young to be glamourous then.

The underbelly of the city cannot quieten

the soulful scats of the lounge singer's echo

from decade to decade,

cannot hide the burlesque

that flowed heavily and rounded, carrying the good and the bad on its River Styx,

cannot stop the resonance of bullets near a grassy knoll,

cannot stop the carousel's fillies from going 'round and 'round.

We stalk the years

that played all the standards--and set the standards

up and down the scales of every dweller's heart--

and we lean wistfully on lamposts,

wishing for a film noir's moment

with a saxophone's rising.

26 September 2011