some days just

here’s that fracture point again
when you just know you have to
change things around, create
a frisson of upheaval

some days just settle down into the low-down,
nose-to-cheek with d minor riffs
and lost grips on others’
barrelhouse hearts

and yet there are other days –
days that survive the coup to rise up,
overstep, outstrip the rabble
and the rubble

but life’s a bottleneck slide,
a continuous call and response –
and some days just slip back down again
into the brash and scree

it just isn’t the blues without truth,
but the good news is here’s another chance
at transformation, another shot
at outpacing it all anew,

here’s another day to rise, another day
to pluck those truth-taut strings,
and sing ourselves
a revolution

2.20.2015

that absence hangs around,
a lone note held –
b-flat drifting long after
the tables have emptied

a blind man would have known
to find a way away from you
but fire makes us stupid

and before this space was vacant
it. was. on. fire.

things are so much clearer
when seen in d minor –
it’s a particular diminished
shade of the blues

but the show’s over even if
the smoke still lingers
and there’s no flyer even
to remember it by

but darlin’, there’s no
forgetting that heat

2.6.2015

tonight, it’s the Blues

that slow-doleful prayer for understanding –

a measure of salt for the cheeks on a night spent by the window

with a glass of something that burns (on the rocks, of course)

and that solitary pine for companion

tonight, it’s the Blues, yes

but tomorrow, I’ll be Jazz