Cricket: Jazz & Other Poems

Haiku No. 30

swabbed in sweat drenched bliss

we answer gregg's corner with

butt shaking footnotes

Kalamu ya Salaam

This final issue of Cricket published Richard Katrovas' "The Public Mirror," Maxine Cassin's "Programming An Evening Away from Home," Lee Meitzen Grue's: "New Orleans in the Rain," a poem from Yusef Komunyakaa's "Crescent City Blues," Grace Bauer's "Fat Tuesday," Labertha McCormick's "Eyes," James Baptiste's "Street Corner Brother," Sharon Olinka's "Bring Back the Beatniks," Mona Lisa Saloy's " French Market Morning," Mackie Blanton's "TeaRoses and PurseStrings," and two poems by Marcus Bruce Christian, namely, "An Old Dog's Advice" and "The Big Dog's Daughter."

I believed then the most interesting of these was Komunyakaa's poem"

from CRESCENT CITY BLUES

A woman's name, sexual & tragic

as Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"

with blood on the leaves.

Blossoms big as cow tongues

strewn across the ground.

Orgasmic mouth-hearts

where bees disappear.

April's rocking wind, these skeins

fall as if self-willed.

Hold one up to your ear

& listen for the lies.

Listen for the skull's plea, white noise

dogs howl to at midnight.

Noserags & deathnotes

wadded up & thrown on the ground

in the woman-scented afternoon.

Umbrellas for French Quarter

derelicts playing three-card monte,

the magnolia's rain-awakened

branches mock the dogwood

that kept me on the road for years.

________________

first appeared in Cincinnati Poetry Review