A bravura visualisation of jazz in a town park, by our poet Judith Wolton – a worthy prize-winner in the Wivenhoe Poetry Prize Competition 2008. Music of the future, and music of the past (Miles). How time does fly. And it’s Day 648 of the daily poems.
Jazz in a town park
Observe the marks that music makes.
The piano stencils toe prints
on the surface of the pond.
See how the singing of a violin
draws vibrant lines
across the air.
And underneath a drum beat
scoops out hollows, flinging its notes
around and out to thud on walls,
smudging the pastel plaster
with purple umber, floating
echoes up to wash the sky.
The double-bass sends curving brush-marks
rippling over the band-stand’s canvas,
smearing its shades to a soft
magenta bruise.
A strident trumpet sprays
its brassy notes, flaying the air,
rocking the ears of the deaf,
rinsing their hair with gold.
Watch, as a melody etched in glass with
sharpened blades of lime-green jazz,
cuts its path through the listeners,
flying up and over their heads,
travelling the streets between high buildings,
painting its blue notes, edged with ochre,
high on the roofs and chimneys, then
releasing honey-bronze to drip in soft staccato
soothing the acid wound of a minor key.
Grace notes flatten the dance to contemplation.
So the prints of sound are gently trodden down –
daubed violet in a sweet adagio,
touching the listeners’ skin,
stroking their veins’ linings,
making them quiver and weep.
You can feel them moving slowly,
tuning your muscles and bones,
testing them out, and
leaving their marks inside you.
Judith Wolton
published in ‘poetrywivenhoe 2008’, Wivenbooks 2008