Andrew said
his jazz teacher said
“This is caveman stuff, this—
beating skins with sticks, it’s
tweaking strings and howls—
primal, hysteria” not
smooth, tie-wearing
sophisticate esoterica
he said, or so I
seem to recall
him saying he said.

Mid-western beanie-donners
recite aloud from
what is certainly if not could be
scriptures of rhythms
notes, chapter, verse
but it is only church when
the text burns, blooms
into ascending, twisting
breaths of spirit
hot, cold, not holy but
what of divinity we,
with the sacramental Manhattan,
partake and deprecate
as Music.

—

The Bad Plus
Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, Seattle