Jazz in the City
Copyright 1999 Elizabeth T. Anderson
Sibilance for Time
Time rises
around us
like steam in a city with sewers
and gutters, and trains
that quietly pass
our prescient notions.
We catch peripheral glances
of stolen scenes, in betweens.
In our ears,
rushing high like the rickety babble of insects,
the dissonant screams
from that beast of three mouths -
past - present - future. All ours
to ignore in our daily deaths,
our somnambulistic paradise.
To the depths of our shallow fears
we dive in darkened pools
of shaded memories -
scintillating visions -
and transient, translucent patterns of presence.
EbMaj7
There is a sorrow song
so old and so slow
and so deep in the soul
of a race, that is cannot
be played.
Yet it falls,
out of moist breath
and quick fingers,
whistling through woodwinds,
shaking lanky strings,
tuning itself
to the time.
On to Section Three: In Another County