songs of the sumday

black hawk blue

midnight
corner
Hyde & Turk
clipped pigeons strain their ears
trespassing padlocked parking lot
brown paper bags of pounder beers
riffraff crowd of busted cars
lame ponies without owners
praying for piano bars
from long gone jazz ghost donors
and I'm vibing kind of blue
kind of a greenish hue of blue
as we wait here for Bill Evans
full moon & cigarette lit seance
waxing once upon a neon
once upon a scene
waiting for Bill Evans
and his ivory boned machine
/
sidewalk plaque X marks the spot
monument for moment lost at sea
flotsam legends scattered to four corners
jetsam jams adrift amid the ‘loin antiquity
notes which soared like cannonballs
from horns that wailed and whined
intoxicating eardrums
as they downtown hip defined
devil-tailed tunes out backdoor slipped
to vice mischief incite
in alleyways they rollick yet
soundtrack of San Franciscan night
/
sign on chain link claims “lot full”
sold out show this evening
but I see only we
in the bulldozed Black Hawk’s shadow
waiting here to hear Bill Evans
to assure us that tomorrow
when we’re all a flat grazed parking lot
tour posters faded & faces forgot
erased from lit marquees with the same effortless ease
that Bill Evans rolled a riff with those key-tickling fingers
the song we sounded in our prime after our time still lingers
when our Steinways sell for firewood and snares for credit pawned

our legacies will keep the beat like encores from beyond