Bill Cushing's Brasshouse Buskers

Last week I was supposed to post this poem by Bill Cushing as well, but here it is tonight.  Enjoy!  Summer is a good time to read poetry and listen to music.

“ZOOZ’S BRASSHOUSE” BUSKING

Three spheres of instrument—percussion, sax,  

and trumpet: brass, reed, and skin—become

a discussion of brash banging fun. 

The three surround a pail, collecting

donations for their beating counterpoint, 

a concerto akin to some surreal 

coo-coo clock. The day’s audience gathers: 

waiting commuters, tourists, regulars, 

a few hipsters. The bucket fills, singles 

and fives mostly, some tens, one guy stirs

a twenty. Two skinny Santas dance 

into view, a yuletide boogie. The music 

shrieks, shocks, squeals, and squawks, yet there’s fluid 

motion in the high-stepping legs, the feet 

that slide, circling Union Square platform

in waves that weave seductive, as these three 

dance and create a wake in a shape 

that’d break the back of a snake.

Bill Cushing

Bill also sent me this YouTube video of Too Many Zooz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMyqasy2Lco

Hard to believe that they are playing at 3:33 AM, the time when all good personal trainers get up and everyone else is asleep.

I think I've posted this video before, but it's worth listening to again:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMe6Y8GDVEI

I like the name "Spocktopus":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc57-IcwnB0&list=PLFIuv6J2T6zztf18uinLjVKy71bT_zq7b

"Warriors" is a new video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve_p5lfYIIs

At last...Listening to Bird

Let's return to poetry about jazz with tonight's poem by Bill Cushing.   I am always happy to receive wonderful poetry about great musicians--no matter which contest is going on.

LISTENING TO BIRD

Flying through scales

he did the impossible, stretching

staccato sounds,

stopping only to change direction.

He found places

in his search for every note

not imagined:

leaving chromatic gravity,

breaking confines,

shooting up into infinity;

then he rested,

hanging on a single, random chord;

bending branches

of music (but never breaking them),

lingering

wherever he chose, staying

just long enough

to make it his territory

and his alone.

-- Bill Cushing

You can listen to Bill read this poem *and* watch a very cool video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er8ob1QqRrs

Or you can listen to some music by Bird himself.

Tonight I'll post "All the Things You Are":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTORd2Y_X6U

Here is his "Bird of Paradise": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_0Rib-0VkY&list=PLbFknnbkaiq3-yTKrmeM69iD1i2KrMChd

I'll finish with a live recording of Bird and Monk from 1948:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7QoV9a9gxE

Enjoy!

Daniel Snethen's Nature Poetry

Thank you, Daniel, for your patience.  Tonight (now that my grading is finally over) I'd like to post your poems that you sent a while back.  The beginning of the summer is a fine time to return to nature.  Since it has been raining constantly in Maryland these past few days, Daniel's poems will have to do for now.

Haiku

bat wings echoing

Owyhee County mineshaft

frightened spelunkers

Haiku

beady eyes, grey tail

popcorn puff clenched between teeth

scurries across floor

Majestic Mighty Mo

From Montana headwaters,

widening winding river flows—

Majestic Mighty Mo.

Steeped with prehistoric denizens.

Paddle-fish and sturgeon,

false-map  and leatherback turtles—

majestic pisces and terrapins

of the Majestic Mighty Mo.

Gavins Point and Oahe.

Fort Randall and Big Bend

all help ebb the flow

of the Majestic Mighty Mo.

Turbines churning,

create an electric electron flow--

lighting the prairie region

surrounding the Majestic Mighty Mo.

Coursing its way through Dakota

like a life-sustaining artery.

 Majestic Mighty Mo.

Mistaken Identity

The tiny serpent 

lay beside my pitfall trap

seeming to want

my attention.

Gingerly, I picked it up

around the middle—

taking in the glorious features 

of this tiny bullsnake. 

But the color was wrong,

too red—not brown,

like the juvenile of 

Pituophis cantenifer—

but rather like the red

of the juvenile Coluber constrictor,

which turns grayish-green

as an adult blue racer.

However, the dorsal pattern

was not quite right,

and the girth— 

hefty, not slender.

I looked at the tail end

of this docile diminutive serpent 

and then I noticed 

the keratinous button of youth.

Haiban

An ancient planet, an ancient society, post apocalyptic survivors of a world irradiated and ruined by alien invasion. Forced underground, a subterranean existence necessitated the evolution of an alternative life style. Eyes functional but sightless in a world with no light, these fossorial denizens tunnel blindly searching for nutrient, sustenance and the opportunity to procreate during any chance encounter with another of its kind…extinction thwarted by hermaphroditic evolution.

nocturnal worms meet

evolution takes no chance

hermaphrodite love

Haiku (Scorpion)

poison tail poised

field cricket frozen in fear

pinned on poison point

Haiku

side-winding serpents

chisel-toothed kangaroo rats

telltale sandy trails 

Spearfish Creek

Spearfish Creek

freezes

from the bottom up.

Current too swift

to freeze 

from the surface down.

It is backwards

and sacred

like the Lakota Heyoka.

It flows all winter long,

satiating the thirst

of the deer,

the raven,

the lone traveler

and all the denizens

of the Black Hills.

It is Mni Wakan,

sacred waters

that never freeze.

Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny's "Beyond the Missouri Sky" 

would certainly fit well with Daniel's poems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtSpiF5q-Cg


I'd like to include their "Moon Song" as well:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtSpiF5q-Cg


Below is Haden's "Taney County" from his 1986 album Quartet 

West:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=DClOeajxGf0&list=PL2AuIlz4sz6XCk50d9SLOfO2_yqJqbs4i


I'll finish with Pat Metheny's version of the Beatles' "And I Love Her":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYcZ6s3z1jg