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Scatology of Jazz

Movement, the sound of horn, the sense of koto laid in snow,

A buffeting of hail upon that rooftop, flat as a Japanese sky,

The bus’s flow, the sound of bees, cat on a hot tin…the

Koto’s reassurance of rain: clare-in-net! Cacophony

Of city sounds and ooh-la! The blaring horn of morning—

Each day the lust for cir-cum-money, carrying

The briefcase of desire and the idea— long hands,

Short fingers of koto player, then the bow

Of the cello, now silence. Dun-dun-serious done.

Call it a breaking day. The cello reels, then breaks

Its heart, and the days travel by. In the heart of night,

A silent dog lopes from the forest, sniffs

A tuft of chicory under a streetlight, remembers

His mother, the pups he was born from, this is

The call of the saxophone, the galloping of ponies,

The funeral durge of strings, those strings that lament

Like a mother, an evening fusion, taste of chocolate,

Tea from India, Ceylon, the bamboo of koto, tension

Of tree boughs, leaves strung out like lights and days

Hung like stars, a mobile. Then, how lonely! How

Much the world knows, carried on koto’s back,

The breath of horn, the string vision of that cello

Weeping, the koto’s testimony in raindrops,

A loon’s promise on a choppy lake.