A new poem, shared with The Mag and dVerse.
MORGAN, MULLIGAN AND ME
‘My Funny Valentine’
Art Farmer – trumpet
Gerry Mulligan – baritone sax
Bill Crow – bass
Dave Bailey - drums
There was
it seemed
a chance
after all;
a chance
that in spite
of the thick
cat curve of
that obsidian
hair; the
electric green
surveillance of
those Cleopatra
eyes; the
devastating scorn
of that
elevated lip,
you might
just notice me
for all my looks
laughable and
un-photographable.
A neutral party
told me late
one Sunday
after assembly
but before the
bedtime bell
(this for the price
of my last
French cigarette)
that you had
a thing
a real thing
for a tenor
saxophone.
Where all
the other girls
had things for
a kisscurl fall
or a hand
drooped limp
at the wrist
or a hip-switch
twist away from
the microphone
you favoured
the blue smoke
of a tenor sax.
So it was tongue
and breath against
bone and sinew
and I knew that
this I could
accommodate
and more.
So when some
other grey
eternal Sunday
afternoon
I saw you curled
alone along the
ballroom window seat
watching the wind
in the trees
along the drive
I slipped
the disc from
its whisky
golden sleeve
laid it like
an offering to
the turntable
lifted on
the stylus and
sat down across
the room
head bowed
hands clasped
in shadow.
Mulligan and
Funny Valentine:
the lemon slice
of Farmer’s
trumpet lead;
the distant bumble
of the baritone
before it lifts
its fuzzy head
and whispers
its sweet and
cruel put-down
praises up until
the two slow
circling voices
wood and wire
ice and water
drop together
wound into
a comic valentine.
And she uncoiled
raising shoulders
lifting hips turning
last her head
until like a
sideways sphinx
she watched me
cat still cat steady.
“Encore”, she said
and coiled again
but now away
from light
and facing shade
my shade.
She smiled.
I smiled.
Sound file:
...AND MULLIGAN.
