Yes, the world seems to be
Imploding.

The world seems to be up/down/left/right/
ab.ab
select/starting itself.

Contra.
All a big war game.

Tiny little hands.
Tiny little hands.

Fingering the red capsule
Waiting to take
A big swill.

Poisonous, self destruction.

But then there is and always will be
Jazz.

The music that makes my pen
Write in uninhibited soundscapes
It makes my mind travel
Each note playing off each others
Swimming pool.
Stop. And dive right back in.
The welcoming sound of blue notes,
Waving flags of Dizzy Gillespie
Waving flags of freedom.
Flowing like ocean
animals.
Driving like
mystics.
Jamming inside, electronic
fusion
of syncopation, drums
Elation in elections of electrons
Sounds of songs, songs of sounds
Simple, complex
Inordinate verticals
Vertebrae, and fractals
The symbols
The mathematical riddles.
The freedom of Dave Brubeck
TAKE FIVE, I got five on it.
I got five dollars in my pocket
Buy my girl some flowers
Listen to the digital relapse
Listen to the heart beat
The oceans of muses
Ocean floor rumbling
With each note.
There is no wrong or right in this world
In this world, the one I stand on
The microphone is standing in place
Waiting to direct my symphony
My establishment, my electoral vote.
My words flow through each
Chord, like vocals on keyboards
Syncopated discord
Fast, slow, low and in control
The soul of syncopation
A masterful masturbation of mastery
Minds, flowing in immeasurable time.
This is jazz to me.
The world out there it ain’t jazz.
And the forgotten language I speak
is music.
With drumbeats, each meter frees me.
This is Jazz.
This is a culmination of nations, facing
Hate swaying in vibrations
This is Jazz.
Rolling drumbeats, flowing stampede
of cattle, cautious half-notes, bending
in someones elles Cannonball forge.
This is a Dizzy dream, a Bird flying high
Soaring through each singers sad sounds
Each drum pokes its head in like children
Who want to stay up to watch the moon.
SUPER MOON.
The world has gone too soon.
And with it is a wall of sound, not a wall
To keep out, but to let in.
THIS IS JAZZ.
This is music…..this is far from oppression
This is freedom.
This is a battle being fought together
This is love.
THIS IS JAZZ…..
This world is not jazz.
This world should begin to be.
I am begging for it.

Let each politicking politician listen
To each drum snap, each foot stamp
My fingers on the keys like Oscar Peterson.
My poetry. Its Jazz.
Fueled by fracking, mother fracking jazz.
The world is pizza pie,
And I am a slice of life.
This is Jazz,
There is no wrong answer.
There’s no squares in jazz.

Just
Simple sparks of synapses firing
breathing fire like a dragon,
dragging each note
As I breathe and spit
This is Jazz.
This world is not
It needs to begin to be.

 

Jason Wright is the founder and Editor of Oddball Magazine. His column appears weekly.