#poem, «Round About Sunrise»

ROUND ABOUT SUNRISE

(While listening to the Overture of Die Zauberflöte by W. A. Mozart)

I like to whisper in the doorway,
play with shadows at the bar,
turn the clocks back one long hour
drive a fancy blue sports car.

I’m an atom torn from silence,
causing ripples on a stream,
like a face half-torn from memory
that returns like a disease.

Like a key that fits no doorway,
like a word you cannot find,
like a letter left unopened
in the chambers of my mind.

Like a road that leads to nowhere,
yet you walk it all the same,
seeking answers in the lyrics,
while you mumble the refrain.

Like a circle drawn in water,
like a wheel that spins in sand,
like a heartbeat that remembers
what the soul cannot command.

Round and round the silence carries
every thought you’ve left behind,
and the turning never tarries
runs big circles round your mind.

NOTA BENE

This poem, “Round About Sunrise” is from my upcoming book Jazz Poetry (more about that later). It was written in the free jazz style where the verses flow with rhythm and a sort of string of consciousness attitude. However, each stanza was, in the original first draft, loosely created, allowing for the much needed “jazz” improvisations during the re-writing stages. The title is a play on the tile of Miles Davis’ Round About Midnight album of 1957. The song “Round About Midnight” was composed by Thelonious Munk probably between 1940 and 1941. Since then it has become a jazz standard. But the song was actually copyrighted in 1943 in C minor with the title «I Need You So«, and with lyrics byThelma Murray, a friend of Monk’s. And that is how my jazz poetry is, very similar to my jazz art drawings and paintings. They utilise the principles that guided and allowed for the creation of Jazz which are: Improvisation, the soloist as composer, and swing (rhythm).

* This image, «Let the Sun Shine In«, is available as a Fine Art Print from my gallery at Fine Art America

CHEERS