The challenge, posed by Stephanie Rogers at my writers' group on Facebook, was to look at the picture below and write a piece on what it was saying to you. I composed the poem below when I got home from work yesterday evening:
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Blue
Eddie saw
and his horn choked
and died
The mouthpiece slipped
from his lips’ skilled caress
his eyelids drooping
like the worn felt brim
of his porkpie hat
A hundred ashtrays
and blue haze eddying up
in the rising heat
of ten dozen candles
and a thousand tender lies
Eddie had seen
a red dress rise
and turn toward the door
guided by a pale hand
Bare arms
dark legs invisible
in the blue black gloom
of the falling room
Eddie blinked
as the zircon glitter
of the fancy comb
whose provenance
he had questioned in vain
wagged away
on the coif of a head
that was so goddamned wrong
The rest of the boys
all felt that horn’s last sob
in darkest depths
of their ancient souls
And Benny gave his bass
a twirl and slapped out a riff
to fill the gap
He nodded at Joe
behind his kit
and Joe tapped
out the down beat
Charlie sighed and bent
a blue note from a steel string
This was the jazz life
They could do ‘Blue Skies’
as a blues
Eddie could bring
his horn back up
and blow like he meant it.
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