RIVERLAND DESIGNS

The Plantation Club

CLARK TERRY

pulling back
to five night stands, you
state the theme
a big theme, Clark,
the St Louis trumpet theme -
in the Chase Hotel,
Plantation Club and Delmar’s Riviera,
Peacock Alley, Glass Bar,
the twenty-seven hundred block,
Miles, Chet, Max, Bud
huh …
put me down for Terry, Clark
at midnight forty-seven

big night for you
you figured it
your theme resolved the question
and you didn’t change your mind

GREG OSBY

not the labor of gardening,
the vertical care, twining, tying,
in the morning (the first
train passes)
not the frost-lifts fearful to break or squash the stalks
when the tendrils come
coaxed, reliant on each other
knowing deep down they share this tree, this climbing thing.
not the wrench lying in the toolbox
awaiting its turn, patiently
ready to fit
or burr the bolt -
instead
something we actually know.

Stoddard St, where J.B. lived

JIMMY BLANTON

Deluxe Café on North Jefferson
upstairs in Club 49 -
from his hotel Duke said no I’m in bed but then
wrapped his overcoat round his PJs and stormed down the street
to see Jimmy play,
recruited him on the spot, 1939,
having heard the fat notes sucked from the room
into the body of the bass
through the fretboard down
spider fingers, shoot
up arms and shoulders to enter the mindbrain
where they stayed as shades,
and by ‘41 he was alone in a California sanatorium
shivering TB
just a chair and his horn
then gone.

The Chauffeurs Club

HARRY DIAL

a small dog walks through your face
where four eyes are laid
in a row,
lids low
almost resting on the bottom rim
some dandy guy walks in
tap tappety tap tap tappety
hat pushed back
you look out past the glass
at dog night rain -
rim shot, sock cymbal, snare
he whispering in her ear
and then the long lazy turn
back into the room, a stare
above the kit between outside and in
beat forward, clicking the airspace
leaving room
for disappointment nurtured in the din
then - tap, tap - she turns too
the dog walks back through your eyes
and, finally, you grin -
the sticks come to rest
I catch my breath
she says
I’ll have another gin.

The Rosebud Cafe

JOSEPHINE BAKER

she did not confess
or declare
or rage

the vodka was sharp
the man, stupid

mais, peu-être, aujour d’hui
l’amor est un petit mal
c’est belle, n’est-ce pas?

caught in the oilstream of fancy flight
she is pretty non?

mill creek /