Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

poetry without jazz
is like the sunset without the sun
it's like the temple without the holy opening

it is jazz, in all its wild passion and voids
it's like the beat without the bounce
the ball with out the round, baby
I'm talkin about the music, the far out sounds
but I'm talkin about the spirit
of improv, and let's face it jazz
is all that, but jazz is also its counterparts

poetry is all that, all its forms, styles, blunt
or airy fairy, but it is also like jazz in its most
most, and that is why beat language takes
on certain words and places them in certain
combos, so with improv and with that usual
familiar jargon of the down beat or the street

so, it's the most, baby
so we tell it like it is, and that includes almost
anything that blow through your scene, man!
tell it like it is, because, it's honest, it can't
help it, you got to have that, got to space
the line the line, time the timeless, and timeless time
it's time out of mind, dig the impossible, out of sight

let the cat out of the bag and drag the rag
this isn't just jazz talk, this is poetry without intent
it's that blunt thing again, but blunt with a fine touch
bend but not bent, bent with a concrete notion
like an unending stream of consciousness, punctuated
with abstract expressions at random with crazy art

and all that background becoming foreground
that implicit explicit, order chaos, chaos order, far out

it had to happen, had been happening
for years after they told us again, again
that honor and courage had to do with
straight-out torching people, again
and again, if necessary, and it will
always be necessary, rest assured
they'll sell it tomorrow if they could
and they will

and what is jazz without poetry?

it's like all the subterfuge
we are fed everyday in the media black out
it is like a hurricane in a hurry
to unfold the newspaper all wet
it's like a drum without a skin
a Adam and Eve without a apple
it's like insane without a sane
a rebel without a cause
it is like rain without soul
it is like a lion with out a mane
it is like a finger snap by Lenny Bruce
without that triple snap, only he can do
it is like the black slaves brought over in
sailing ships, the ships are pretty on the sea
but the cargo is singing them freedom songs
it's jazz, without poetry, until it finds its voice
it's the birth of jazz before they call it that name
and this poem is not a history lesson on jazz
but it is a little clump of words and sounds
in search of a meaning in a world where meaning
has been sore lacking, i mean the kind of meaning
that is hidden throughout the misery of history and
time, the kind of stuff we read about everyday that
is being discovered, uncovered, pushing back the
means, pushing back the time lines, opening up
the temple and seeing the writing on the walls
it's about the color black or the lack of color
all the colors combined that resemble the night
that once was filled with white stars that were clear
and brilliant to the naked eye, jazz without poetry
is like Kerouac without On the Road, or Howl without
1955 and that moment when tears fell on the bongo
but the finger snappin was and the hair was let down
is like the night sky without the sprinkling of sparkling
that tells who we are, and why we are here, dig
them stars, jazz is just and so is stardust
and 1955 is just as cool as 1967 and nothing has changed
and everything is changing and the evil empire will keep
running itself down down down until the wheels fall off
and the jazz becomes cosmos song of pure energy
all them off notes add up to a new language that is born
from the old one, or we just keep hearing Bitches Brew
all the fusion, beyond confusion. all that Miles Runs The
Voodoo down, and Jimi runs the Voodoo Chile, and Jim's
voice wafts through the smoke that smells like victory
this is the END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!my only friend, The End.

I'm talking about that stuff
like jazz, like all that jazz
like the first cigarette
and like the last one
like the first kiss
that girl going on 13
the first time you felt
a girl up and the first
time you got really
drunk, yeah that jazz
the day you had some kind
of realization, that you are
on your own, that society
is like culture, and culture
is not your friend, i'm thinkin
the first time I heard jazz
I mean really heard it, was
the first time I smoked pot
there was that first time I
read William Burroughs
and listened to Dylan
but I mean dark jazz
I mean poetry moving
through the words
that you can hardly
say
gray
areas
that exist between one note
and another
there was that first poem
or something that came out like a poem
was it because suddenly everything
seemed to grind to a halt and you grind
your cigarette out in the plate of scrambled
eggs
you
remember
the time you first got your hand between her legs
and then distracted, that jazz hits your brain like
a memory that comes out of nowhere, when as a kid
you recall seeing the Mojave desert for the first time
the horizon seemed to stretch for ever into time out
of mind, and then the jazz hits you again
and your sitting in some cheap cafe
and you ask for a refill and look down at the stuff
you wrote for the heck of it and the waitress
looks like the first girl you kissed, except now
she looks like she has been kissed by every Jim Joe Jack