[New-Poetry] Matthews's Young

[David Graham]

On Lester Young's birthday, a poem in tribute:

Listening to Lester Young
       for Reg Saner

It's 1958. Lester Young minces
out, spraddle-legged as if pain
were something he could step over
by raising his groin, and begins
to play. Soon he'll be dead.
It's all tone now and tome
slurring toward the center
of each note. The edges that used to be
exactly ragged as deckle
are already dead. His embouchure
is wobbly and he's so tired
from dying he quotes himself,
easy to remember the fingering.

It's 1958 and a jazz writer is coming home
from skating in Central Park. Who's that
ahead? It's Lester Young! *Hey Pres*,
he shouts and waves, letting his skates
clatter. *You dropped your shit*, Pres says.

It's 1976 and I'm listening
to Lester Young through stereo equipment
so good I can hear his breath rasp,
water from a dry pond --,

its bottom etched, like a palm,
with strange marks, a language
that was never born
and in which palmists therefore
can easily read the future.

--William Matthews


==========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
==========================================



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20060827/b3a81d85/attachment.html