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H-E-Y!!!  Please REMEMBER that you can order
fantastic Zzaj Productions CD's from our HOMEMADEMUSIC site, at:

http://www.homemademusic.com/~zzaj 

We are in URGENT need of your
support, too, as we were caught in a "lay-off" situation (that was a direct
result of the WTC affair).

Wouldn't hurt (I suppose) if you remind them that the C-mas season is
getting near, & a ZP CD makes a very nice gift for friends who love
adventure in their music(s)

 

 

Improvijazzation Nation - Issue # 41

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 'Days full of rain'

Ornette Coleman, Townes and BMWs
with the Fort Worth Blues
a chaotic poetry across the lines
somewhere between Zen and sanity
here and now, come and gone
but somehow always around
like oil burnt into levi's
that aren't ripped for effect
tear the heart more than most
with grit in the saxophone
dust on the strings, smoke chords
gnarled hands of old bluesman
speaking louder than the sirens
shrill voices, nothing to say
to auto queues but buy, buy buy
the poet must, troubadour try
bring the painters soul
from a forgotten masterpiece
leaning in cobwebs silent now
in an attic painted in blobs
Jackson Pollack on Free Jazz
sound out of sync and in time
as any railroad I ever travelled
Ornette's saxophone speaks
like an Illinois train whistle
from a Steve Goodman song
mixes coffee with diesel fuel
that cleans the nostrils
of a working man's dread
but Massachuesetts knows all
but nothing of sweat and grime
that cannot be washed away
in marbled restrooms of books
that teach nothing but
life is bigger than the sum
of the parts from the manual
as I longed for autospares
and waited for your first kiss
piano notes like wine to taste
stories shared between friends
a barstool for our memories
amongst guitar strings unplayed
and songs half remembered
on mornings without sleep
singing 'Days full of Rain'

Mike Plumbley, submitted 3/29/2000

 

C17H17NO(C2H3O2)

 

Staring at me. Hollow, metallic, thin rod,

a snake fang, dripping.

You’re so warm.

You’re so nice.

Clear, plastic reservoir filled,

I shouldn’t—should I?

I could you know.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Neon Squid Flashlight in a Dark Room

Fibrous vines of the neon squid,

clear and coated.

Cylindrical torso,

darting like a ballistic

through a lightless, aquatic empire.

Fluttering gills and sinking, shapeless forms,

weary of its viney wrap.

As if a distant nova, the squid ignites,

expanding to fill what is not yet,

until first seen,

its existence known,

its negation, the universe.

----------------------------------------------------------

Turkish Rug

Black metal slumber,

glaring at the night through the double-paned, bay window,

drifts of snow knocking at the main entrance.

He rocked it to sleep, a baby taipan,

hardening its trance,

suckling it

with bite after bite

gorging its empty, narrow bellies,

until they could hold no more.

He roused it and

it rocked him to sleep,

shower the Turkish rug

that had slept beneath them both.

 

Previous 3 pieces written by:

David McReynolds

4011 Hamilton Circle # 140

Arlington, TX 76013

817-801-1566

vishnu@swbell.net

 

Streetlight

The night his mouth engulfed my nipple, there was no misery involved.
I reacted like water flowing downstream
bending and turning to fit the riverbed.
My breast whiter than Christmas snow in the streetlamp

We were still encased in sweat when I realized that I needed him.
My stalking stealth cat persona gone.
Like the homeless person knocking on the window,
we were both given some spare change and were satisfied.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Freedom of Choice

Dehydration just before a thunderstorm
Inexplicable cravings
Sensuous urine in a steady stream.
The first raindrop,
whispering silence.
Fluorescent lights, unfamiliarity
a stranger's hand to hold
right before the gray takes over
and pulls out the soft flesh
of the uterus
while offering it with gentle hands
so that no life can be conceived.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


For Those Without Fathers.......

I have sat in that alley a thousand times or more
smoking my cigarette while crying or cursing
alone with a stomach full of hatred.
It must have come through the umbilical cord
and formed with the cells that make up my bones
because now I am made of it.

I want to let go.
I want to destroy buildings and houses and cars and credit and relationships
with
god and ex-wives
there are no more stepsons for me to find
no more short haired girls with big lips and skinny legs
only me

smoking     cigarettes  alone   in some rat infested alley
where I found the purple crystal doorknob
that will hold magic to my      own
daughter someday.

3 pieces above submitted by Marla Nease, 12/7/99

 



Candy

Get up and dance.  False prophets
ring too early to be taken seriously,
threatening cases of dynamite
perfumes first tested in Vietnam
marital aides developed in Nazi death camps.
Shake your heiny to the catchy new
ceremonies of hate, testaments inspired by
Time Life Books.

It ain't Merry Christmas anymore-
it's Happy Dahmer, it's Yom Manson,
it's only Tuesday and I can't go in to work,
not now, not with all this
shakin' goin' on.
Hello.  I'm having a torrid affair with a postal worker
and  I'm all tied up right now. Literally.
Hey, you ever play Russian roulette with a service revolver?

Let your body do the talkin'.  Blind fingers
tap on the other side of the locked trap door,
screaming SOS, SOS, SOS, and I
have too many good reasons for not opening the door,
not letting little Janie with her 4-H Morse Code knowledge
out of her cage and back out on the street.
Crimelights flicker Revelations One to One Hundred through
the white hotel curtains, and I tell you

there are enough stories in this town
for a million television series.
And I could star in every single one.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Echidnae

stood against the wall of her kitchen, listening
to his mother berate my mother, call my family
trash, wanted to scream, "They're your family now, too!"
her condescending nod to my stories of my mother
breaking show ponies, saying, "Well, old workhorses
are easy to break, but a good horse
needs a professional trainer," wanted to
scream lies of exploits my mother had in the circus
death-defying bareback vaults in front of crows of millions
backed down for the sake of the child upstairs
feeling myself becoming slow, worn
obsolete

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mornin'

It's your blood on the sheets
This time, it's your blood on my skin
This time, oh wake up, you sick piece of shit
Look at the mess you've made.

And you're going to sleep past noon again
Aren't you, lazybones?  Wipe that grin
Off your face.  Are you listening to me?

Must've drank a fifth by myself
Last night, can't remember
Where I put my glass, seem to remember
I broke it against something
But I can't find the pieces.
Careful where you step.

And you're going to just lie there
While I go and make breakfast, aren't you?
I always turn into everyone's mother.

That's your blood on the floor
Your blood on the counter, all over the carpet-
How the hell am I supposed to fix breakfast
With the place looking like this?  Not to mention
You're hogging all the cutlery....


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Susan

I stood and watched you sleeping
for nearly five minutes before
I dropped your purse on the chair
and slipped quietly
out the door.
Please lock your door tonight.

I spent the last few days
wondering  if he came back
for you, finding you alone
my big sister duties abandoned
just long enough
for him to really hurt you-
it just takes one time.
Why didn't you call this morning?

I can't play everyone's mother
I'm stretched too thin as it is
I can't sleep for worrying
about you, little girl-
nobody is going to come
when you scream.
Please tell me you lock your door now.
Please tell me
you're all right.

All pieces above submitted by Holly Day, 11/16/99

 

Jazz Dive

For a moment it sounds like something,
then the improv runs away.
Fingers dance on frets, children at play
taking five more minutes before coming in for dinner. . .
. . . then five minutes more.

Some call snifters pretentious,
but, ah, for good brandy - the pregnant teardrop
captures the soothing olfactory snap. . .
the ecstasy, the taste, the cool burn on the lips,
the electric splash on the tongue - baptizing the throat like the music,

soothing what is restless.

No place is nowhere in New York City, but this suffices.
The comfort in despair is how it is shared: intuitively.
Alone in a jazz dive, eavesdropping on a man attempting bridges to his
soul.

Above piece by Paul Pineiro, submitted 11/11/99

 

ROUND MIDNIGHT

Jazz

A flatulent sax

melody crunching notes

catching a blue mood

smoke

 

SOUL SHAKIN' DIVA

Woman

rubanesque, lively

dancing barefoot, her

shoes tossed with elan

a Coltrane jammin',

Bird gone

girl

 

MANN ALIVE

Still trilling

that Philly Dog flute

from Baghdad to Bahia,

a silver lipped samba

pushing notes in moonlight

under comin' home

stars

the 3 poems above were submitted by William Scott Galasso, from Kirkland, Washington

 

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