The song is...: Words and Images (part two)

Another blessing of starting this blog has been reconnecting with long-time friends like Bea Garth. (She and I were in Joan Dobbie's poetry workshop in Eugene, OR back in the days of typewriters (ugh) and snail mail...and the chapbooks we put together at the end of the semester.) I remember how striking Bea's art (paintings, drawings, and ceramics) and poetry were, so I am very happy to present both her words and images!

WAY BACK

I’m the hippest cat

from way back,

from men to men,

from men your business

from men your button

that fell on the floor.

Men, I’ll tell you

I got the longest P.J.s in the world,

they cover the entire floor

with just the tip of the collar,

just the elastic in the waist.

Men, I’m the cat

from way back

with the slippiest

piece of pearly gate

the slippiest note hanger

the slippiest recalcitrant

peach pit you never ate—

pit and all—like an oyster that got bit

like a penumbra that got numb

like a silhouette that fell in the shadows

waking the rooster with its

cat walk

cat on the cake walk

derriere in the air

hippier than the sky falling apart

in little window pane slats

filtered like dust turning somersaults

in the sunlight

licking its chops

swishing the bobcats, alley cats

and all kinds of feline pussy-willows

trying to kiss and such

and regurgitate to the sky

quickly, silently, in a ferocious

anticipation of an anticipation

of a yowling hyena brushing her teeth on the subway

kindly minding her neighbors

not to knee jerk too high

from being hit by the balling

bellicose cat conductor

turned bandied old lady with yellow teeth

from smoking too many yellow butts

behind the bushes behind her grocery bag

sitting on the bench at night

yearning to the sky about all she

could have, should have, didn’t have

--howling like the hippest cat

of them all and we fight

tooth and claw, letting out

great quantities of foaming cockroaches

over the blinding sun setting

in the abandoned parking lot

with our shirts ripped open

knees apart, derrieres in the sky for all to see

and never knowing why

each other is the hippest cat around.

Note: I wrote this after listening to a magnificent jazz piece which I thought was called “Jazz, She Is a Woman.” However I have never heard it again. I am curious if anyone else might know what it was based on. I thought it was a Count Basie tune, but apparently not. It was a ballad about how jazz originally came out of Africa to New Orleans and finally to New York City. As I started to write this poem I recalled this old woman in Eugene, Oregon I talked to one night sitting amongst her bags on a bench. I combined her with a bombastic character I knew at the local community college. The speaker in the poem then became a woman living on the edge in NYC, and the rest flowed with the ins and outs of the music.

I, too, have been trying to find "Jazz, She is a Woman" or perhaps "Jazz Must Be a Woman," but Ted Joans' "Jazz is My Religion" is the closest I've gotten:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOIqkVMjobY

Here Joans is scatting with David Amran:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAoxZXYuZvE

Amran performs one of his compositions ("Waltz from 'After the Fall'") with Pacquito D'Rivera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sTeyRZUqn4

We'll finish with some more performances by D'Rivera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfgVPIa_bq8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA5fE8nlZ1o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxF4tEssUfY

Enjoy! My cat Callie may not be dancing, but she is intrigued by Paquito D'Rivera. Perhaps you will want to dance to him.