From the ripe age of 12 he learned his craft and taught us about miracles

that all came under the headlines of JAZZ -gypsy jazz

the thunder that rang inside his sweet head and fetched

Stephane and his swinging violin to the stage

Despite the fire in the caravan and the burns and losing some fingers

and feelings –

the guitar came first

Music from European small cafes while women danced and whirled their skirts

Paris night clubs melting under hot lights and sweaty crowds

twirling his mustache and bending the strings, all the while smiling that grin

that he knows something naughty happened

He changed us, the world, the way we think…

from stages in London, in front of thousands of lucky souls

while Eddie Cantor kissed his hand and allowing

American jazz to seep into his gypsy skin and bones

Playing with the Duke at Carnegie Hall and bowing

to the cheering New Yorkers, he played

God did he play

A beatnik at heart he sometimes skipped concerts

“to walk to the beach” or “smell the dew”

We owe a debt to you sir and thank God you made records

Soft notes escaping from the Harlem window as big old Buicks

cruise down Fifth Avenue and dine on dance clubs until dawn

Ella and the Count are everywhere and anywhere for all hip cats

to dig and find a place to jump on

The golden horns and smoky air intoxicate the modern soul

that yearns for the truth about what momma told them

Listen closely for a Blue Moon to saddle up the past with real

dollars and very tiny income

Red rose gardens and whitewashed school books suddenly

make sense in the cool reefer night

Forgetting the style and not caring for rules the cats bob and weave

as the bats fly out and give you a crazy bite

Jazz from the earth and Jazz from the sky, calling for the east

and calling for the west

drums beating loud for the cattle call that rounds up

Harlem’s best

Soft notes escaping from an empty loft near the park that

fall on the sidewalk until the ghosts move along

Victrola heaven cranks orders from the magician’s

vocal chords that tap out the broken heart’s song

Get up right now and head to the store, the radio, or the

old smoky club

Your jazz is waiting patiently and you never have to

show the man your ticket stub

Sometime after the War, the big one, the second time

after years of austerity

after years of fear

after years of funerals

after years of hard labor

A hole cracked open in the heavens

and music poured down

and poetry poured down

and literature was born

and freedom expanded

Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Elvis, The Beatles, Steinbeck, and Playboy

danced in the streets

danced in our ears

danced in our minds

danced in our feet

Yes, they came from the Heavens, the place where all goodness is born

but the hole dried shut

sometimes it leaks a little

but not nearly enough

sometimes we need more, much more

So, the next one of us who dies, better leave with a jack hammer

and find where the hole use to be

start drilling, and drill down deep and hard

let the goodness flow down on us

like a flood

Relentless western rain pouring onto soupy gray lanes

horses and cars scare one another as the old world is shoved

aside by a new one

Teller’s emptying out – gone to the oil fields

money…the corrupter and killer of civilizations

(or at least the one he knew)

He nudges the paint pony onward

past the stores out of neighborhoods

very few horses in town anymore

cars, lots of the damn things

the rain peppers his face as he turns his collar up

dark blue horizons on the hills

Been here his whole cowboy life

all he knows

the wife died a few years back and the kids moved to the oil fields

money…lots of money

the old range hand tends to his herd…talks to them

opens the barn and feeds his livelihood as the sun sinks west

he sits on a bale and watches them eat and stick their mouths

into the water trough

be a full moon tonight

back when he was young he would drink and dance

at bar back in Teller when the moon got full

tonight just a fire and beans before

retiring and hoping for an old cowboy’s

dreams

I knew your father, a way you never did

sitting at a bar, a little off the grid

He became my friend, a teacher, a time

his stories enthralled me and then became mine

his friendship was real, honest and true

He was consistent, easy to turn to

Like father and more, he became part of my day

drinking and talking, never a cliché

We didn’t always see things and completely agree

but our friendship was deeper, I was made to see

What he saw in me, I never understood

he carved out a table of ancient redwood

Beer and wings, sometimes a little more

I hope we meet again, on a distant mystical  shore

Now he is gone, some days I feel a bother

I’m just glad I can say “I knew your father”