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1. |
Gin
04:25
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The first time I drank gin
I thought it must be hair tonic.
My brother swiped the bottle
from a guy whose father owned
a drug store that sold booze
in those ancient, honorable days
when we acknowledged the stuff
was a drug. Three of us passed
the bottle around, each tasting
with disbelief. People paid
for this? People had to have
it, the way we had to have
the women we never got near.
(Actually they were girls, but
never mind, the important fact........... (continued)
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2. |
Making Light of It
01:46
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I call out a secret name the name
of the angel who guards my sleep,
and light grows in the east, a new light
like no other, as soft as the petals
of the brown rose of late summer..... (cont)
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3. |
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Practicing his horn on the Williamsburg Bridge
hour after hour, “woodshedding” the musicians
called it, but his woodshed was the world.
The enormous tone he borrowed from Hawkins
that could fill a club to overflowing
blown into tatters by the sea winds.... (cont)
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4. |
Yakov
05:14
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My uncle told me of the cabin
in the forest, his house for years
thirty-five or more - he'd lost count
long ago. From miles off descending
into the valley as evening gathered
in the branches of larch and oak
he'd catch the smell of wood smoke,
the thin plume that always brought
him home. "The silence, it was
all, it was everything." ... (cont)
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5. |
They Feed They Lion
03:34
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Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.... (cont)
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6. |
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Wakening in a small room,
the walls high and blue, one high window
through which the morning enters,
I turn to the table beside me painted a think white. There instead
of a clock is a tumbler of water... (cont)
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7. |
The Music of Time
04:30
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The young woman sewing by the window
hums a song I don’t know; I hear only
a few bars, and when the trucks barrel down
the broken walkway between our buildings
the music is lost. Before the darkness
leaks from the shadows of the great cathedral...
(cont)
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8. |
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My mother tells me she dreamed
of John Coltrane, a young Trane
playing his music with such joy
and contained energy and rage
she could not hold back her tears.
And sitting awake now, her hands... (cont)
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9. |
Arrival
01:36
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If the express should slow and then
suddenly stop and sit utterly still
for minutes on end and all talk
stop and no one question the stillness,
no voice announce what, if anything,
is about to transpire... (cont)
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10. |
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First the windows gray, then
go black again, but gray is
on the way. Williams lights up
and says, It’s on the way, but
I can’t hear him over the over-
head cranes. I don’t look up
because up is not sunlight
breaking above the eastern
hills or even rain clouds
meant to cool our fevers or
telephone wires clogged with
bad news. Up is the flat steel... (cont)
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11. |
Our Valley
03:20
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We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass...
(cont)
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12. |
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Some days I catch a rhythm, almost a song
in my own breath. I'm alone here
in Brooklyn Heights, late morning, the sky
above the St. George Hotel clear, clear
for New York, that is. The radio playing
"Bird Flight," Parker in his California
tragic voice fifty years ago, his faltering
"Lover Man" just before he crashed into chaos.
I would guess that outside the recording studio
in Burbank... (cont)
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13. |
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Two women and a small girl—
perhaps three or four years old—resting
in the shade of the fir trees.
From far off the roar of the world
coming back one more time.
First a few words tossed back
and forth between awakening men
and then the machines.... (cont)
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14. |
What Work Is
03:07
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We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother...
(cont)
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Benjamin Boone Fresno, California
Benjamin Boone is a jazz saxophonist, composer, professor, and U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Ireland (2022-23), Ghana (2017-18) and the Republic of Moldova (2006). His Origin Records album THE POETRY OF JAZZ was #3 "Best Album of 2018" in the 83rd Annual Downbeat Readers Poll and featured on NPR's All Things Considered, The Paris Review, and many others. Websites: BenjaminBoone.com & OriginArts.com ... more
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