Wet pavement and orange street lights
The sound of distant tires
Cutting a path through the moisture
Laying in the cracks of the highway
Wet and thick
Breathing in the fog
A record playing in my head
pops and cracks, jazz, singing out
Some lonely saxaphone

Buzzing
Humming
The entire world is black but orange
Sitting on a curb
Smoke another one
I fit so perfectly in this performance
Yet I've never been so detatched

Oh Jesus time by the pink and purple sunset
Thinking of a traveling guitar boy,
of chai sleep broken by dying beggars
all trying to tell me something.
If the ocean lights don't call us home
we could backpack to the crocodile places
eat thirteen camels with the people
smoke tea and rainy day cigarettes.
Heartache sits like snow on the roof
of the hollow hut Connecticut.
The kids tried too many times for nothing.
Mom dream better for me
Wear your peace face
I'm trying to change

You're talking France nostalgia while upstairs
the weaver makes seven-dollar laments
for international slum chickens.
We can't do better than the break-bone average
reading scorched Chalbi newspapers
hacking coughs and statii soup for company.
Bukowski's in Mumbai eating cheddar
My siblings are in cages down in Egypt
The Spanish Communist cowboys
spill Turkana survivors on the floor of the Greyhound bus

Is there a hood idealist, ghetto healer?
My Sacramento roommate's drinking skeleton coffee
in the bathtub, she's got the Arab fever, so have I,
and not much else but these crazy plague jackets
this hungry smoking December
and Rumi's kids in cold-bread streets with protest signs.
We're easier taught the panic than the magic or the save,
There's too much strange and midnight waste.
You didn't know I needed you but you came through.
You're shimmering in clothes of saxaphone

your electronic memory of
Oscar Wilde collapses
just then the sun
the future like a gun
afloat in cream
bang film skin piano

your memory hangs in my
broken window like a saxaphone

forty somethings smoke and flirt
on a cruise ship floating
toward a blissful retreat
where time has lost command
and the radio has blown out
the morals of the age

minds crazy
again confusing

love

for broken bones,
all night we ask

for help, who
comes?  you

sway to bird
and saxaphone

rejoice at
near-miss

rescue

escapee, we
tried to give you

baskets
of reasons

not to love us unconditionally
but you love us unconditionally

so we sleep
in the hand
of the sky

In a crowded room filled with high society, and
In the facade of decadence, plays the Back Street Symphony
Winos falling asleep covered in yesterdays news
A lone saxaphone player, playing the blues
Neon signs and desinger lines are giving him his cues
He says "I've paid my dues"
I've got front row tickets to mainstreet
Walkin' by, don't know who you'll meet
A freak show on every corner
A broken heart walks on as a mourner
In a darkened alley you can hear him pray
Searching for a Savior with some words and a brown bag
Can anyone spare some change for me?
There goes the prom queen, is it a dream?
Hell is open twenty-four hours a day
I have front row tickets to main street
Watching the devils' choir earn their keep
There tearing down the walls in LA
There's a ****** on display, on main street

Why
do we call the blues
blue?  I'm playing on
your blues guitar,
wondering how you are.
Blues, blues.

My mind walks the streets
of saxaphone,
experience,
cigarette smoke--
like Radiohead says,
I don't care if it hurts,
I want a perfect soul.

Blues, blues.
The Yapese call blue
'ran mak'ef'
the water of the reef,
the blue within the blue,
beyond the blue--more blues

than these eyes have ever seen,
than this mind has ever known.
We only call the blues blue
because there is often something
so beautiful
in sadness.

Charlie was my friend, he was a chef
Then packed everything in to play saxaphone
When he played the universe stopped to listen
But ****** was claiming him, this he overthrew
In favour of wine

One day on a beaten track I found him sleeping
A woman had told me to beware the *****
She stood at the top to watch me walk past
So that I'd be safe.
I saw my friend and sat down, we smoked a smoke
Talked of old times
Fields on either side and the woman
Stood in amazement until I waved to say it was all alright

One night I was sleeping and woke in the dark
Charlie was saying "Wake up wake up"
The wind was howling outside
He took hold of my shoulders and shook me awake
I said
"******* Charlie, I'm trying to sleep"
Turned over and closed my eyes.

I found out a few days later
He'd died that night
In another place far from me
Of a final old times shot

I still walk across your crooked kitchen floor,
in my fine tuned dreams,
The tiny front room where you seduced me,
with nuances of notes that have have settled on my soul
like lichen,
Filling me with hundred dollar whisky and saxaphone sound
that seemed to be tendrils that whispered through me,
It was only when I cried out with the beauty ,
that you took me trembling,
took me down to the sublime,
Wrapping me in circles of you,
turning and twisting with hard fingers,
moulding me to you,
I am still there in my fine tuned dreams,
supple in your love.....

Every time we say goodbye.
by
Jude Kyrie


The ash line lengthens
From my untouched cigarette.
Smoke rings billow
Like clouds passing eternity.

Its past the time of sleep
Only memories flow
Only of you
always you..
The bartender
freshens my drink.

The music weeps from
The sweetness of sound
That only the alto sax
Can bring..
A nelson riddle arrangement
Touches my soul as always.

When you're near,
there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere,
begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer,
but how strange
the change from
major to minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.

It's Ellas trademark song
But we borrowed it.
It was ours honey.
Just for a while.

The whisky burns my throat
As the saxaphone wails.
The ashtray smokes
You are behind its mist.

The bar is quiet and peaceful
The drinks dull all pain.
Outside the rain is falling
The neon lights color
the pavement
in muted reflections.

I see us again
through the window.
Arm in arm
walking in the rain.
Then you float away
Like the smoke
in my ashtray.

The sax builds the last line
Ella almost whispers
*Everytime we say goodbye

Should you phone
When I'm home,
Don't assume I'm alone
Choosing epithets
For my stone.

If you phone
And hear a graon,
Don't assume I'm on the throne.
That's me practicing
Saxaphone.

When you phone
And hear me moan
In mellifulous polytone;
That's my slide
On a sweet trombone.

I'm the new age
Don Quixote,
Sitting in
My library.
I'm not dying,
I'm versifying,
Communing with
Life's mystery.

as much rebel rousing ******* as i can speak,
The heart is a heart
and my overwhelming excuse for a miocardial infarction
is a poor representation of unrequited love

The beats that skip notes
when i see your drum set
are not full of enough bass to top your playlist

and its the melody...

That solo saxaphone moment
that carries you through this day
that attracts my ear
and buys my sheeeeeer will power

but keep my offerings as a testiment to your everyday miracles
because while my hat sits empty
yours collects change
and i hope one day someone of worth
notices your tune.

how many years since we
heard from joe
a curious combo combing
hurt

and happy..
some inspired bass
some real *******
sensitive lyrics..

he was 6 foot 6..
his piano composition
is further inspiration
i felt

jealous and sick..
stepping out
i glowed inside
and howled along..!

into the light
young old
tv gone
fnd..

he made too
a song called cancer..
everything
gives you cancer..

listen now..
never hear live
a lively rumbo
or something..

and don´ t played
that piano..
good on yer
joe..

iv

not unlike
alladin sane
kind of
a bit

bowie
not so
formulaic
less structured..

he rambles
along
like tottering
on a cliff

a bit more
melancholic
there is a
lack of direction

and a child like
frustation
the genius
tired by genius..

the whole thing
lacking any kind
of melody
but quite melodic..

some of the single notes
might have been aliens..
lol..
and the pianist

was his first and only
cut..and saved the day
when we are
to plummet

into insanity..
there comes
the saxaphone
which purrs

and loves us
into breath..
and that first
boing!!!!

astrix joe jackson
a real songwriter..

THE NEXT TIME

The next time you are mucking out the horse stable
Stop for a second allow one thought to come to mind
God he as well created all those flys all over you
Believe it they are not real hard in there to find

Next time your sitting out in the country squatted
Away out of sight under a great big old country tree
Doing naturally what you really there needed so to do
In your jeans you spot a deadly spider looking at thee

The next time half way home from the shop really loaded
With several heavy bags as you walked for shop not far
And a truck passed splashing you with ***** street water
You never knew God would have it rain why take the car

Next time your watching a movie on T V husband away
And your naked as a bought chicken visitors arrive
You were just before taking a shower a house full
Praise the Lord for after all at least your alive

You live in a lovely home with lovely gardens too
And the old house next door just got sold its true
The worst family of criminals ten kids a pedaphile
All now living in there and right next door to you

Remember its said love your neighbor like family
They as well have a karioki with big speakers there
Full blast day and night all of the time heavy metal
Five barking dogs and no fences love life its divine

Kids no respect for others homes their gardens as well
They fill your gargage bin with all of theirs too
One of the kids is learning drums another saxaphone
God wants everyone to get along loving each other true


Next time beer bottles in your garden dog droppies
In your garden on driveway their toys in your pool
Smile and praise God Over dogs karioki screaming kids
Because you know that God loves you and hes no fool

The door bell keeps ringing can I borrow this and that
Tools sugar things disaperaing all the time of late
Remenber God he wants you to love everyone on earth
Regardless who they are rich or poor across the slate

The husband next door now uses binoculars watching you
Even through windows in bedrooms too it now seems
God wants everyone be good souls kind and conciderate
loving one and all to help all obtain of their dreams

Your underwear vanishes from your clothes line too
Bras and ******* must be the next doors thing its so
Oh God another broken window cricket ball in bedroom
In that bible man wrote turn the other cheek let it go

Footballs daddies golf ***** shes 20 stone loves bikinies
Its so hot asking mind if use your pool for awhile
None of your friends visit anymore endless excuses made
Remenber God knows best grin and bare it remember to smile

terrence michael sutton
copyright 2018

One tear leaves, shiny vestige
of the brains transcription.
A movie house of dying
images scribes in cunieform
as I watch thru my prism
of memory

The racks of yesterdays
like layers of summer boats
in winter

of the claws of
sorrow,

the yank

of tears

Birth the ends of
sorrow when love

again

Walked

in..

You stood there
reflecting
my broken
healing, a

Refrain of

Saxaphone s.
Of love

In the

Tear s.

You Blessed me
from  your
so far

away.



Caroline Shank
5.20.24

A writhing tendril of harmony
Backdrops the gentle pulse of samba jazz.
Magnificent spiral of minor chords vocalised
Against the weave of a silken saxaphone.
Stan Getz and Luiz Rioja at play in 1963.

I find myself floating above earthly things
Wafted into a gentle world of yesteryear
When things were simple
And the passing crowd smiled into your eyes
With an open honesty.

[email protected]

The sound of the tenor notes
culled by the expert plying music,
swiping keys and sweat from
the essential melody of the
saxaphone sends me into
the world of the sensual.

I breathe shallowly.  Sigh in
the tender way of notes
brushed against my skin.

I sit in the smoky club as if
alone in my secret self.
Smoke trails from my mouth

as he makes contact.  
The player sees me and
knows my helplessness
as he swings toward me
trailing the sound of his
sax across my waiting lips.

Caroline Shank