Scrabble Poem After a Blind Date, written at Chumleys:
For Eddie Harris.
Eddie at Sweet Basil's
A tethered sax
hung lax and languid, like a dewdrop
from a cold peony
off of Eddie's neck.
The sweat shone high on his black pate
As he inclined his ear to hear
the grinding gear of table-talk, while plumbing
for a riff.
Sweet Basil's was no bastion of fine funk;
instead, a showcase for the national jazz
played straight as God;
The soulful simple Harris groove
might vex the bebop-textured brain.
But like a savvy surfer Eddie waited for his wave;
The rise and fall of voices and
the rhythm of the plates and glasses were, to errant ears,
a clamour;
but to his, implied a music latent
like the tone of certain stones when struck
by ball peen hammer from a jewler's hand.
And at once, true to heart, he knew his time;
And started off a cough of rumbling reed.
The crowd attended; and he laid down a lyric diamond
Keen and cool as ere a lusty look stopped time
Across a foggy bar.