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The Poem Circling Hamtramck, MI, All Night In Search of You

from The Poetry of Jazz Volume Two by Benjamin Boone | Philip Levine

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lyrics

He hasn't gone to work,
he'll never go back to work.
The wife has gone home, mad,
with the baby on one arm.
Swaying on his good leg,
he calls out to the bare bulb
a name and opens his arms.
The old woman,
the beer gone from her glass,
turns back to the bar.
She's seen them before
with hard, knotted bellies,
with the bare white breasts of boys.
How many times has she stared
into those eyes glistening
with love or pain
and seen nothing
but love or pain.
Deep at night, when she
was coldest, he would always
rise and dress so as not
to miss the first streetcar
burning homeward, and she
would rock alone toward dawn.

If someone would enter now
and take these lovers--for they
are lovers--in his arms
and rock them together
like a mother with a child
in each arm, this man
with so much desire, this woman
with none, then it would not be
Hamtramck, it would not be
this night. They know it
and wait, he staring
into the light, she into
the empty glass. In the darkness
of this world men
pull on heavy canvas gloves,
dip into rubber coats
and enter the fires. The rats frozen under the conveyors
turn to let their eyes
fill with dawn. A strange star
is born one more time.

credits

from The Poetry of Jazz Volume Two, released January 18, 2019
Philip Levine (poetry), Benjamin Boone (as), Craig von Berg (pn), Spee Kosloff (b), Brian Hamada (d)

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all rights reserved

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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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