Lou: The Jazz Gal

[YRKB]

Sometimes it feels I'm chin deep in a deluge,
When you look up from your morning paper,
And the slightest of tasks feel so monstrously huge
Like promising I'll be here later.

Darling you go to work, in your hat, with that wave -
Come back for a kiss and again go, as ever;
And it may even be the brightest of March days
But I flounder this tempest and sink to the nether.

I don't know why I'm so sick with this feeling -
It's been a year since the last afternoon call;
I told her I wanted to repaint the ceiling
And it went on that way, that was all...

Ma didn't say she felt death on her nightstand;
Didn't wish me a wonderful life -
I try to think of something that seemed at all out of hand,
But everything seemed about right.

You told me 'people go', your father's gone too...
But I've always been Mama's little girl
'And we've a good life to throw ourselves into',
But..I've always been Mama's little girl.

I thought I loved you completely;
She said it was clear as blue sky...
But I've been so, so lonely,
Though I know how hard you've tried.

I'm grown,
You're grown...
But it doesn't seem enough.

I've always been Mama's little girl, darling -
And it's just too tough.

Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown

[YRKB]

I'd sit at the back of the club for Lou;
on a crate.
That's what that kind of girl does to you -
you just don't hesitate:
'Turn something over boys, just haul it over!'
So running the bus boy would come
And I'd sink upon it like a slug-ridden soldier;
Just before Lou's act begun.

Drums, and horns -
Ba-ba-bee-DOW!
The curtains rolled open,
and Lou took a bow -
Lou fixed her smile -
Lou threw that shimmy,
started up the band -
with a 'come on Buster, hit me!'

By God, she could move,
That raven-haired gal;
The whole show through
threw shapes like her dance partner, Hal;
oh he'd tried to catch her
coax her
and snatch her,
All of course part of the act -
'Cos if I'd got wind he was that kind of trick
My boys would've met him out back.

The crowd would rise for her;
Molls would hoot on their toes -
And that's talent I assure ya,
That type prefer foes -
But holler they would,
Whoop her and whistle,
She was so good -
The stage chimed with nickles.

Offstage too, a vision -
That green eyed, pale skinned piece;
the night was done, the club had risen
when Lou hopped her car home on the street.

After a little gangland trouble,
having missed a Lou act or two -
I busted a few wise guys' bubbles,
then went back to pepper my ragu;

But Lou wasn't there;
Just some broad they called Blanche,
That bus boy he told me
she might be 'back South on a ranch' -
he said nothin' more ,
till I showed him some steel
and crying, he swore -
he didn't know then, the deal...

Lou, or Laurie, was a 'high yellow' maid -
who abandoned her lady to dance,
and while in negro clubs she'd have been handsomely paid;
it was in the white city that she took her chance.

A few days before, her mister had called -
thinking she worked in the back,
he pointed her out and just by how she had stalled,
the manager gave her the sack.

I thought about Lou, that trickster, that fraud -
For days after I left that joint;
and even now I still think about the broad,
though to say it, I don't make a point.

I'd sit at the back of the club for Lou;
on a crate.
That's what that kind of girl does to you -
you just don't hesitate.

Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown

[YRKB]

Rosie Mullone looked a sweet little thing,
Cheeks full enough to hide your heart in -
Soft golden tresses, light to the touch;
But Rosie Mullone herself?
Not quite so much.

We'd been courting not more than a week,
When we passed some store windows, and in her sweet squeak
Did Rosie Mullone feel inspired to note
How I might impress her, and from her lips I quote:

'Some girls will say just love me, love me!
Some girls will ask for a ring
Some girls will want your first darling baby
Some girls won't want a thing!'

'Baby, you know what I'm wanting?
Oh baby! You know what I'd like?!
For some it's a lot, others it's one thing;
For me, baby, well it's just right!'

'A dime, a nickle, a dollar a cent -
It's nothing I need if it ain't getting spent;
Make me some money, make me a pile -
That's what would make your Rosie Mullone smile.'

Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown

[Delta40]

YRKB you should post all your poems in one thread if you have more than one poem per day.

I think this seems to be like lyrics from a song complete with chorus/bridge and I would be interested to hear the music that goes with it.

[Delta40]

Again I felt the lyrical side of this piece and I enjoyed the narrative. Got me thinking of songs like Hurricane.

[Jerrybaldy]

I am beating Hill to the comment here ... but only because he is right... the tail is wagging the dog, the rhyme is guiding the story, it would work as a song lyric, it could be an american pie with the right tune, but without the tune it has nothing to say, other than lou was a bit of a catch, sometime way back when. Bonnie and Clyde by Georgie Fame, it reminded me of that.

It didnt make me think so much.

[Delta40]

Lol. Hill wields the old school cane and he's not afraid to use it.

[YRKB]

I resolved to love you,
Not because you were great;
Because I wanted the legendary.
Because I couldn't wait.

Don't get me wrong...
Your menacing build, hooded eyes,
Lent to the feeling, at first strong
You might forever alter our lives.

Hungry.
Hungry to burn in love,
to break in it,
to -
snap...

I waited...
I...
waited.

But you gave me none of that.

Good man, good,
good,
good man,
happy disposition,
always doing ALL you can -
to understand,
and listen.

Some of us crave...despair.
I guess that's what I've come to see,
and over these long, long years
amongst them I count -
me.

In rare times when you...
flounder,
to understand my 'upset' -
I wish that you had...
found her.
This twisted,
hungry,
wretch.

And that she made you - angry,
evading your 'good sense',
and you fought her deliriously,
until we were,
both,
spent.

How to tell someone this -
who loves only by the book.
This loathing seems like an abyss;
but to you, perhaps,
a brook.

Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown