Sunday 17 January 2010

"Riff for Morton" from "Rubber Orchestras"



This is the a poem from a new collection I'm working on, Rubber Orchestras. The collection will feature 100 poems, and will be published in early 2011 if all goes to plan. More soon.



Riff for Morton


Damper down

both phallic and acquainted

with African blues.

The hips suggest

good jazz )(i.e.sex)


Anita, 1900.

the african fiction of whiteness is absolute.

arcade saloons and dance halls

gambling down like evil or false notes

blue notes of white magic


Jelly roll morton

at the cadillac cafe

pimp or piano drunk and sick

on the bricktops of vancouver


Ragtime Billy

from Chicago

a clarinetist at the Regent

1923

went southwest with the wrath of poseidon

gambling down

in terrific storms which broke down

the pensacola kid

at the Paradise gardens

with the first three notes of Dead Man Blues

and The Pearls


yes he left mamanita, yes he left

yes he let his beard grow

spat blood in the broom closet

yes he let his beard grow


there were many diamonds

she left many diamonds

cash on cadillac cars

duke ellington

had swing bands

basie and calloway

had a cluster of tricks

which in fact were as spikes at kingpin sessions

and in the exact rooms of the kidworth hotel

where days passed like clinic cards

Morton left the sepia spot and took his body to the jungle inn

on 126 North West


Red Peppers and the attack of alibi, restless priests

listening to Pops Mabel

at the church of intercourse

Jelly you rascal

you minstrel

you lover

you bone meat of the creole caribbean

- vicious semen, Jelly

bake ‘em brown and break a banjo across their backs

jelly you blues talker

1930

the worried blues and the voodoo of your laughter

stepping lean in stove pipes

with the prestige of your father


to the very end.