Jazz On A Summer Night

Jazz on a summer night
Floating, crashing in a broken wave
over the sweating crowd
Up and out and around
floating, twisting, turning,
Returning;
Zig-zagging into the smoky air;
filtered through wisps of beards
and hauled in by ears
grabbing for the beat--the strange--
the new
the crazy
Jazz on a summer night.
Hot and cold; red and blue;
Painting Dadist pictures on the lover's
caucofonic canvas;
stabbing with a dull pain in every
Working joint
s p r e a d i n g the
muscles and
making them flex--
then relaxing--
Letting everything fall in to place
Jazz. . .jazz on a summer night
walking through a tennis shoe crowd;
Meeting old friends--
Making new ones
whispering intimate things to both;--Jazz
victorious over the surrounding ether;
bulldozing its way into the inner-sanctums
And crowding out all thinking

Jazz, Jazz, Jazz on a summer night

by James I. Morgan

Published in Convolutions
Peoria, IL, Bradley University
Winter, 1960-61

PP. 6&7