Sunrise over Franklin Avenue
Jazz Poem
Franklin avenue
wakes
The sun glows on the bridgedecks
over the ol' man river
singing in the basso profondo currents of a darkness
still entranced
by the skyline
not far up stream
Minneapolis
with the drone of 94
its blood just
starting to churn...
faces and brains and bodies
marching to a piper's tune
... money ... October huffs with the chill of hazed air
oar boats slide in rhythmic flair
like bugs on a slow stream
in the deep shadow of trees
The Franklin Bridge arches strong and firm
within the mists
unfurled
a v-necked flock of late geese
beat their wings with urgent need for longer days
and fallen seed
The 8 bus groans ... its bellows blow a mist of twisted air
A cyclist sloughs by ...
Helmit and flashing bulb
cycles underneath the string of windows
empty of faces in the pre-work hours
Honeysucles, basswoods and gnarled oaks
rise in silloueted spread
preparing raw for snows and grit
their summer's dress in tatters
swollen in dew dripped mounds
heavy and rusty gray ...
A jogger expels frost
And a dog tugs leather in the lead of human
contemplation and frayed anticipation ...
anarchists stir beneath the maze
of chokeberrys and buck thorn
The first rays beguile a catawpa's crest
with keyboard-like arpeggios of sheen
[keyboard solo]
Twenty floors of breakfast
clatters in the blaze of curtains
greeting luminescence
high-rise convolescence
hijabs
children
cellphone resonance
Riverside construction
Semaphores with red, green, yellow
drumbeat
incantation
[trapset]
traffic
streaming from the ramps and drives
...Starbucks streaming to the hand...
Headlights dim in the wave of blue ... blue ... skies ...
The Coop, Zipps ... the taxi lines ...
by Perkins ...
The 2, the 8 the 7 crossing streams
Students, latptops, Kindles, jeans
Sleep-drained eyes ... homework and mp3s ...
earbuds tethered ... backpacks stacked ...
the university ...
the atms ...
the canyons of high velocity ...
on rails and streets and sidewalks
clicking with the long stampeded trails
to towers, workstations, powerpoint presentations
and smart phone dissertations ...
... a return on vast investments...
Occupy it all at the plaza of protest
... Wells Fargo, Triangle Park, the pottery bin,
and the Second Moon
... they all
welcome the full employed
the unemployed
the oft deployed
and other comodities
of trained and lost humanity ...
And there ... in the morning glare
Beneath the maple trees
is Merwyn gazing long
from his lizard cave
by the river of steel,
a tributary from the Mississippi
a glissando glaze down streets and ways
On the bliss of slick guitars
in the wind
[guitar(s) play]
Riverside, Cedar and 94 ...
Minnehaha, Washington and Hiawatha flow
Past the Nile ...
the Blue Nile ...
the river ...
the words ...
and the syncopated ride
Through Franklin Avenue...
At sunrise
josjr (2011 1028)
