The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Fri 3/14/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Johnny One Note

       Bobby Hutcherson in Oakland


The mallet strikes but something's off,
and so he hits again, curling that lower lip,
purses his brow, as if this sign, this minor woe,
were speech the vibes might understand,
so when he lifts bluish lids as if wakened
to the desired tone that rings now, it seems,
it sounds, under wraps, a water-ly quaver,
through the club crowd's silence,
as it floats above us like an aerosol
trying to find a new way to escape,
passes through the wall's mortared pores
to reverb in the cool night air of an
unpeopled sidewalk, droning toward tracks
where a passing peopled train sucks up
and winds his finally found, wowed tone
around its wheels, held there by steel heat
one hundred miles, until it reaches the sea,
where wheels and whistle overreach
surging surf the good vibration feels such
desire for, and leaves its tedium
of the round and round, lofting to a sea
that comes and goes but finally simply goes,
as one night, this night, the cool vibes' air
(struck finally in the changed groove of sax
and ecstatic kit) is free, finally free,
to go where we won't hear from it again.

W. S. Di Piero

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W.S. Di Piero’s latest book is Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). His essay collection, City Dog, will be published next year by Northwestern University Press.


********************************

:hi:

RL

[xchrom]

1. and now i can't think of the name --

but i know the place where he's talking about.

and it's not far from an amtrack station -- or the bay.

[RetroLounge]

2. Meet me at the Amtrak, we'll look for it...

:hi:

RL

[xchrom]

3. i'll be there --

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

5. How will I recognize you?

:shrug:

RL

[xchrom]

7. i know huh?

i need to get a pic posted -- it's frustrating cause i need help with stuff like that.

[XemaSab]

8. Yoshi's at Jack London Square?

:shrug:

[xchrom]

9. kimbal's -- kimbal's east

even though as far as i know there is no kimbal's west.

although since they moved yoshi's from clairmont to jack london -- that's by the train tracks.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear Retro...

Oh, this is lovely...

To follow the stream of consciousness...

To see where this poet has taken this note from this man...

It's wonderful!

Thank you!

:hug:

[RetroLounge]

6. ...

:hi:

RL