I don't think this one works anymore. (I've used it too many times.) It's my "wanna-get-laid" poem. (Every poet has one, you know.) I include it here among my pleasers because it pleases me. It's the first poem I ever soloed on like a jazz trumpeter. Every word of it is true ... sorta.

A musician stands out on a street corner

And begins to play

Melodies melodies up through the leaves

Like a big cat climbin'

Melodies.

Testin' each branch higher.

Reachin' out a black paw

To catch a note

High in the tree.

Melody.

The musician blows his horn

And makes an air of blue scarf

Swirl out of the bell...

Floats into the street light

Like a sheen of lonely attitudes --

One voice

High in the tree.

It's that melody.

Now, this musician ... you can call him Cat,

Cat Blow the Horn's Hymn Blue

Pullin' the brim down on a blue hat

Playin' things as they are muted --

A little sound caught in his throat;

Mutated --

Things as they are with a difference,

A difference in everything he does.

Oh this Cat, Cat Blow the Horn's Hymn Blue,

Wearin' the blue hat,

Blue hat things as they are,

Blue lips playin' as you hear them now --

Rips through the creamy moon and the midnight

A sound that says,

"It's love.

It's love that's tearin' him apart."

Oh, he's just a guy,

A guy out on the lonely street corner

Wishin' that he could press

To the woman in the window light

The music he would play

If he could catch her

In that impossible note.

Play her like Saturn Ring Swing Around Hazy Mars.

Play her at the window three flats up

Moonlight, lake wind, trees in the courtyard swayin',

Potted plants green, summer screens,

Faces of Coltrane, Brown, and Adderley

Mixin' in the sounds of the night

With his own heart rhythms.

Oh, this guy, like a big cat climbin'

On a stone ledge walkin'

Thinks. He thinks

That if he could just move his hands

Up from the bottoms of her feet,

Caress her belly,

Kiss her 'til she died.

A blue fire spinnin' from his head blown out.

A flame in his tongue freezin' her

In a measure of time that won't let loose.

He thinks

This is the holler. This is the moan.

This is the only note I cannot find alone.

So take it. Take from me the creamy moon,

The crazy wind, the midnight.

Take all there is and all there's gonna be.

Take all there is and all there's gonna be.

... and so one morning she did.

And in the yellow morning light he found.

Her blue lips parted on his belly cold.

Blue lights spinnin' in a sky burnt out.

A flame wick in the tree tops gone cool.