Dreamy Blues

for barney bigard, arthur whetsol & lawrence brown

    you ain’t been blue . . . til you’ve
    had that mood indigo . . .
                            —Ellington/Mills

a young girl

is somewhere waiting on

the boy she loves; she

has seen him every day for the last

five years but today he will not come.

an old man

is down by a river

standing at the spot

where he saw his only son drown.

a woman who never knew her

mother but knew her

mother did not love her

is somewhere walking the

streets.

i travel to all these places,

long to capture that

which seems to be our shadow,

swells with absurdity

recalls jobs we can’t have,

hotels we can’t enter

restaurants which show us doors

instead of menus.

ours is a deep dyed emotion;

marching bands

ragtimers

banjo pickers

barrelhouse ballers

dangerous dance halls

segregated neighborhoods

too proud to weep what it lives.

we are that drama.

we are this

unusual arrangement

that speaks for the millions,

that is why this song is

full of our dreams

heard in

late hours on our radios

phonographs

we love ourselves more

sleep well at night

rise from our beds

to work hard

and fancy future

triumphs where

we are wide awake

in the middle

of nightmare,

this sound will

carry us forward

and speak to the world

in a language that does

not lie

just a ditty i wrote down

one day

before the show

while my

mother prepared supper,

and somewhere

we were living

this mood . . .

Source: Jungle Nights and Soda Fountain Rags: Poem for Duke Ellington (2001)