I play jazz with words.
A keyboard of sharps and flats,
a thousand, two thousand keys,
as many words as imagination uses.
A console in my head.
An organ full of storms and bells,
a horn to blow birds from.
A harp of endless phrases.
Black as pitch.
Spritzer frizzling.
Deep bows, dancing on the strings.
Ping-Pong on the walls.
Tempo expanding into jazz.
The snapping of a geisha’s fan.
The swinging highs and lows of notes
dissolving into butterflies.
Jazz played like jazz.
New Orleans’s style.
Chicago romping.
New York booze,
and tap shoes tapping
like the heart running down the street.
Music inside words,
meaning showering like the rain,
sex flirting on the page,
breaking glass inside an adjective,
clicking fingers,
words falling off the margins
of an edge,
syncopation where a sentence ends.
Jazz, as blue as a feather flies,
chasing shadows around the room,
making love with words
rising from the paper,
all that jazz,
to go
where you want to go.