REQUIEM FOR A WORKING MUSICIAN
He was a tiny footnote—one
lost horn player—just one too
many—admired but forgotten three
years after dying on stage. He
played for
food, played for love. He flatted
fifths
and bopped hard—eight to the six—
fell onto motel beds at six
in the morning (checkout was always
one).
He played in big bands or with five
guys he didn’t like—as long as
one or two
could really play. He made four
records and played on three
famous dates, but only three
reviews mentioned him. In sixty-six
he got real lucky—he opened for
Miles. Then that deep dark one
spoke and said,” Don’t play Two
Bass Hits on my bill. Only
five
cats play it as good.” Only five.
Most players would take that over
three
weeks at Birdland. He’d done that,
too.
Downbeat spelled everything
wrong, called his “six
work very hot, very saxy. One
of the few, maybe tre or four
young palyers we’d stand in line
for.”
Interviewed him once. He said, “If
I’ve
played real good—I ‘member one
night—hot, June night, blowing at
three
a.m.—only about two chicks and six
guys left standing. Soloed for
twenty-two
choruses of ‘Night in
Tunisia’—other two
cats laid out—just the rhythm
beating four
into eight—not one of those six
even heard it. Packed up at five.
I remember that night. Maybe three
others like it.” He didn’t say
one
word more. Five old players, just
two
he knew, and three ex-wives were
there for
the service. One piano played him
over the Styx.
Mark J. Mitchell
FUGUE: DROUGHT
Don’t move piles of pebbles.
—Sappho, Fragment 143
A mountain escaped leaving
one pure tear—
a small lake just
to tease the city.
We dream of water here
and wake up
with dust tears
coating our pure lips.
So we take turns
kissing that lake.
We may taste it but—
teased—we can’t swallow.
Someday we’ll escape dust
like the mountain and we’ll drop
real tears in to the heart
of a dry, impure city.
Mark J. Mitchell
THROUGH THE FRAME
First there’s a picture,
both awkwardly hung
and poorly framed. Now reach. Don’t
break the glass.
Your hands are precious as the
spectral face
in front of you. Neither can be
replaced
these days. Your arms sport
gooseflesh. It won’t last.
Now stroke the flesh awake. It’s
firm, soft, young.
It was never that young before this
frame
enclosed it. Now remember all you’ve
done
to her. Good. Now watch your slow
breath erase
the image and your sins. You may
trace
that smile with a damp finger one
last time.
Don’t speak. They don’t use
words here. This is mime,
not drama. You only dream you feel
her lace
collar, her loose hair. You wake in
framed space.
Mark J. Mitchell
FLASHBACK
The rain gleams and
is gone.
I can make nothing of
the lion
but a small shape
scraped in bone.
The plague arrives
knocking on my
forehead.
The door yawns.
CONVENTIONAL REPUBLICAN SONNET
I guard a door and consider the Grachii,
sorting reformers from
programmers—none
may pass without electric blessing.
Some
try. Most fail. Weary vigilance is
my
lonely duty: I must hold these gates
firm
against some temporary citizens,
make a holy space for denizens
of this digital republic. I turn
back all who speak my tongue. Where
is the land
that troops are owed? Will our crops
grow themselves?
Only coffee is sold within these
walls.
The masters of technique, their soft
white hands
unused to plows, must still be fed.
Their cell
phone guide them. They’ve made an
app for the fall.
Mark J. Mitchell
TIMELY
The stars are a
memory system.
—Diane di Prima
Notes on the
Art of Memory
Today the calendar
counts only days.
It pretends to map stars
but can’t chase their memories.
Pages are empty of festivals.
Mysteries are no longer hidden.
They are missing.
The sky is almost empty.
Tonight’s the moon’s covert
smile
sports one star—like a tear.
Mark J. Mitchell
