Diminuendo in Blue
Duke. Newport, 1956.
Way before your time,
not mine. I didn't know
from jazz then; was unbaked,
just beginning to cook up dreams.
The centerpiece
then and there
was a tenor sax solo:
twenty-seven choruses
whipping up the crowd
into a frenzy
frothier than the foam
on Narragansett Bay.
This was the long bridge
before the crescendo.
Nothing like that
here and now:
the record, starving,
a definite diminishing.
Where was my feast,
my triumph,
my Paul Gonsalves moment?
Cheer up, they tell me.
Snap out of it.
There’s no use crying
over a spilled life.
Lately prophets
are predicting
that the world
will end soon.
True? Good
Christ! I'm not ready.
An improv in the interval,
staving off
the personal apocalypse
with table scraps of joy
from concerts of old tunes.
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