• listening to jazz & jam sessions at CHADO

 

Florence becomes Paris

Florence becomes Paris
as the Venus-in-Tuscany
lyrics curl their way
past Morrison’s grave
to swagger,
creamy and wild,
down the stairs.
Surf beats
onto the musical
shores of mythical
rock as complicated
strings mingle
with the blood
and bones of breath.
The surprise storm
is a frenzy
of MoFo delight –
a plentiful
sashimi-planet
of chaos,
alongside
the elegant cord-
cursive of care.

 

- Listen to Diane reading the poem  

     
© all rights reserved
 

This one isn’t finished yet

A long boat
of sound
is gliding
on the slow waters
of elasticity

The cord-
cursive
of chaos
sits beside
silken,
sighed-out
notes of enquiry

Short, sharp
sobs of success
tease
the bestial
bark
and bubblegum
scribbles
of the tin flute

Through the window,
a boy
with a raucous-
pink thick-
shake stares
as the dumb gong
dabbles among the bells
and glass beads
of meaning

They etch
their crabbèd
confusion
across our brains,
searing
ear drums
with instructions
via the mottled music –
releasing the fumbled
fury of creation

The crooked bower
bird of coincidence
gathers trinkets
of understanding –
coins and sparkling
stones, silver paper
& yellow feathers
spotted with egg-
shell blue.
They decorate
the vast internal
plains of our
being

Each cell
is full
to overflowing
with the readiness
to partake,
drawing
in the long, silken
tendrils of life
in another realm

Burnished
bronze
shimmers
with the story
of celestial lions
before the heavens
are filled
with the lithe movement
of molecules –
leaping,
unruly,
through the dignified
turmoil
of the beat –
the insistent
beckoning

I glance outside
at the belligerent
beam of a baby
who hasn’t
learned to tame
her effusion

Wild lines of sound
refuse to still
their dance,
mimicking
the joy
of a bee
on a trajectory
set by a lunatic

Thick
ribbons
of sound
pour from
the pasta machine
of improvisation

Wearing
pomegranate
& saffron robes,
the acid jazz
plays games
with comic-
book heroes
while the percussion
trampolines
across tumble-
weeds
 of breath.

  Snippets of pop culture
are snatched
from across the globe.
   Podcasts
      ply their pursuit
        of the people,
       merging
            endlessly
  with the fabulous noises of cities
 in the evening,
in the sunset,
and forever...

 

 

- Listen to Diane reading the poem  

     
© all rights reserved
 

It is written

The elusive Century-
Gothic
font of sound
entwines with great
rings of barbed-
wire across
the pandemonium
of our thoughts ...
Shhh ...
watch the slow
and incomprehensible
message of em-
   power-
      ment
   as it lodges
 carefully
into place

    Musical scribblings
are scrawled
in squid ink
     stolen
   from the Seraphim
as they stride
 across the Milky Way
 where coils
of noise
 are always
 unspiralling
 in the bethlehem
bedlam of dark
and light

They dance
across the midnight sky
with a bubbling,
child-like hum

                    II
The flesh and blood-
bound
temples
of the human
mind
welcome
the breath
of sheer relief
as it’s draped
in purple
tapestry
across
their sacred walls.
It hangs
from the tails
of silver peacocks,
covered
with a fine patina
of indigo
dust

Ghosts of sound
 are mirrored
  in the double bass,
along with endless
 reflections
 on en/
lighten/
ment

            III
 A solitary
   ear-
  drum
slowly taps out
 the memory
   of the bleeding
lobe
lost
in the flowering
effusion
of a Charles
Bukowski poem

The ebb
& flow
of the bassist’s
lament
slides alongside
the slender shoelace
of distress

There’s a persistent
patter
of percussion
along the patterned
pathway
of melody
& dissonance,
trembling and trill

       IV
Lavish
curls
of sound
are laced
with silence
and the peculiar
pearls
of the drummer’s beat

The physics of jazz,
the physicality
of the vibration
as it
kisses
the tiny
wishbones
of the inner ear
and the vast
liquid substance
of the human body ...

The Gong-Throb
murmur
& hum
of thunder
in the room

Harmonics

Ellipses

    

      V
Rainshower
of the gongs,
edging slowly
across space
like splashes
of colour
spilled
onto a lake
of milk

The gongs hush,
ready for the perfectly
timed entrance
of a fire
truck’s siren
into the middle
of the sacred
pantry of sound –
the blistering
pastiche
of Albert
Ayler
lamenting
the loss
of John-the-Revelator-
Coltrane’s
sound waves –
oceans of the stuff

The world
is reduced
to a single
beach
for two faithful
children –
the world
becomes
a musical
halo
for their
unclouded
sympathy

       V!
The low
treacle
of the gongs’
invasion
of the sound-
scape
pours
its Greek tragedy
into the atmosphere –
ending in the timid
splutter
of a boy
who is sanctioned
for speaking
too loudly
on his first day
of school

       VII
The unexpected
fish-slap
of a drum-beat

Notes bent
& flaming
with otherness

The long slivers
of sound
wending
their way
from throat
to mind

The drum’s
crow-caw,
mellow and long,
joining
the excited squeal
of an infant

       VIII
The soft powder of sound –
the pulverised
feathers
of notes,
painted as minims
that quiver
on a musical
score –
all these are projected
    onto our minds
       as garlands of sound,
        strewn from window
   to window,
    from star to star ...
 and we are dancing
in the sainted orchards,
 bursting with a riot
 of noise,
while angels,
further off,
swirl
their robes
of cashmere
on the sylvan fields
of sage and moss

Cacophony

Grasshopper fingers
slide and beat
while a frenzied
festival of hands
somersault
and cartwheel
in delight

Golden reflections
of traffic
glide across
the curved
soprano
sax

Strings send
slippery swirls
of sound
across the atmo-
sphere

They trace
the whimsical
arc of a bumble-
bee’s path

Echoes
curl and crash

Soothing
samples
from so many places
sneak
into the frenetic
fabric of the sound

Their fleeting visit
is the dreaming memory
of half moments

An alien alphabet
is beating
its relentless
code from palms
to eardrum

Lungs pour forth
delicious thunder-
storms of breath

The bleating stripes
of sound
are woven,
then shredded
into an elegant
chaos of effusion

The giant triptych
of sound
is decorated
with snatches
of conversation
and the tip toe
of chopsticks
across the bento
box of invention

Creeping now,
the music becomes
the careful
approach
of a hunter

But the prey
darts away,
scrawling
a graffiti-score
of relief
across
the massive
rock-face
of our minds

Fish
scales
fall
as confetti
while disparate
notes
challenge
one another
to a race –
each running
harder
than the other,
before finding
themselves
surfing
on a solid
sound-wave
of foam
towards
the rippling
shore

Eddies of mess
meld into a vast
picture-plane
of thought, riding
across the sari
red and gold
of the music’s
cicada thrum

Invisible children
skate their praying-
mantis kites across
the sky

Others wave
sticks and ribbons
through the air,
shaking
their snake-
charm bracelets
of noise

They are all
mouthing
complicated
syllables
that criss-
cross
in a hectic
cunning
of connected-
ness

Armies of ants
are terrible
in their march
of triumph

Dragon-
fly splashes
of everything
are dripping
from the taj
mahal vastness
of the sky

A billion balloons
of breath
suddenly become
a mardi gras
of wild animals,
crashing
their way
through the jungle
of joy –
brazen,
bossy,
bold.

Their delighted
escape
fills
the world.

Beating.
Beating.

Hearts.

Synecdoche

The letter ‘S’,
the sighed out,
semi-circular
script
of the lament
whispers
to the spinning trill,
the gently
hammered
drone.

Solid strings
and salted
cymbals
land
on a word
that means
something
like simultaneous
understanding.

The genius
clash
& clamber
covets
the klonk
and catherine
whirl
as Harleys
rumble
& ratchet
along the road.

There’s an alien
nature
to the sound,
a hovering
hum and clatter
of the blend
as the sum
surpasses
its parts.

Springtime Jazz

The words
don’t know
how to say
what they
hear –
the tok
tuk –
the shiver-
ful show
of the sax –
the zithering
soul
of the sound –
the swaggering
exuberance,
the low,
languid,
laughter
& the nimble,
muted
notes
of the consummate
experts.

11.11.11@11.11.11am

So many unruly
lines of thought
are drawn across
the oyster sky
in shades
of cloudy blue.

The complicated
Coltrane shivers
past the silver
vines that wend
their way
around the purple
vest of the mri-
dangam.

The slow Dr Seuss
of the saxophone
plays with the lazy
spiral
of the double
entendre bass.

The confidence
of the music
swaggers
alongside
the seemingly
idle meander
of the guitar’s
lush, metal
body.

The bass
& drum-beat
saunter together,
linking arms
to welcome
in the new dawn
as she slides
her rosy
fingers down
the parallel
realities
of so many
glorious
elevens.