Jogging With The Great Ray Charles , livre ebook

Ecw Press - Kenneth Sherman

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72 pages

English

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Kenneth Sherman's work has always displayed a vibrant lyricism, so it s no surprise that his powerful new collection contains a number of poems with musical motifs. In such pieces as 'Clarinet,' 'Transistor Sister,' and the book s titular poem, Sherman ponders our human transience while searching for 'a voice to stand time's test.' Sherman also confronts health concerns in a language that is Shaker-plain. The book concludes with the sombre, compassionate, and truly remarkable seven-part 'Kingdom,' a meditation on the plight of the dispossessed.

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Poetry

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Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	11 octobre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781770909410
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Jogging with the Great Ray Charles
Kenneth Sherman

IN MEMORY OF HAROLD HEFT

CONTENTS
ONE
Clarinet
Transistor Radio
Jogging with the Great Ray Charles
Contra Language
Berlioz
Heart
Awaiting Biopsy Results
A Dream of Leaving the Toronto General
Venus Occluded
Predictable
Umbrella
TWO
You
Western
North
To My Brother
How to Prevent Your Own Conception
The Collector
Revision
On First Reading Hamlet
The Tailor
The Home
At the Glendale Theatre, 1957
Layton
Little Grandmother
The War
Salvaged Pages
A Contemporary
Photograph of a Talmudist
Our Home
My Friend Is Dying
Four Questions
THREE
No Tracks
Cherry Tomatoes
Snail
Fishing
Clouds
Northern Lake
The Marina
Dusty
Wringer-Washer
Penhale’s Schooner
The Seville
Colón, Panama
Seashells
The Value of Repetition
Gingko
Buddha’s Parasol
Contra Absolutes
Hearing Your Favourite Poet
Wise Cracks
Vanishing Ink
Scribe
The Beach, Today, Is Closed
Toodle-oo
De la Cruz Gallery, Miami
Bartender
Obuse, Japan
FOUR
Kingdom
Acknowledgements
Also by Kenneth Sherman
About the Author
Copyright

ONE

CLARINET
Ebony body that flared to a bell.
Tone holes and cool reflecting keys.
The reed of Ishtar
resonating in the humid chamber.
Sobs of klezmer on the banks
of the Vistula, or swelling symphonic
in the court of some Frederick.
O little Claire —
my splayed fingers manoeuvred.
Months of wrenching squeaks
until that first clear note
opened a smile on the face of Mr. Hargreaves,
our school conductor
(embouchure, timbre, slurs),
and I ran home to uncover
my father’s stack of 78s:
the silky cadence of Artie Shaw,
the mongrel tremolo of Sidney Bechet.
Orphic stick, moody tube, please forgive me:
in 1966 I put you to rest in your plush
velvet case, took up the electric guitar
to be one of the rockers.
Now you’re down in the basement
with all things left off, not carried through,
though I imagine a second life
where the promise of your higher register
is kept and your whole note lingers.

TRANSISTOR RADIO
Cool blue, rectangular,
held to the ear
it gave off the doo-wop,
the backup, the echo and soul,
the hip-grind and throb
of the Monkey, Mashed Potato.
An infinitesimal
turn of the dial
poured out the forecasts, traffic,
Jungle Jay’s shtick,
talk show dementia,
requests out to Sue and to Rick.
Giveaways, getaways,
flux of the age.
The jangle, the jingles —
our right to blare.
Those crackling voices
dissolved into air.

JOGGING WITH THE GREAT RAY CHARLES
What I feel is old jogger’s happiness
running along the salt-stained boardwalk
within earshot of surf.
Warmed tendons, loosened limbs,
the blessed rhythm of my steady breathing.
And I’m helped along by the iPod clarity of Ray.
Now there’s a voice to stand time’s test.
Some blues grind harsh,
the soul strung out along six stark strings
or straining hard through the reeds
of a keening harp, but Ray’s — complete
with backup brass and chorus — can uplift.
I too have drowned in my own tears,
but not today. Today gulls drift,
cacti shine, tropical fronds fan out
like fishes’ vertebrae. All around
sand is common though precious,
glinting along morning’s diamond-crusted edge.
I pad beneath sun’s benediction,
hit now and then by a fine salt spray
that keeps me focused in the present tense.
I’m in sync with Ray’s upbeat
and don’t even mind the younger and quicker
who pass me in their latest gear
then speed out of reach. Notes last
while these bodies flashing by —
the bright, the ecstatic —
sooner or later vanish.
We sing, man. Then we’re gone.

CONTRA LANGUAGE
Language, unlike music, is condemned to have meaning.
It carries the reproachable human need to explain,
to justify, to convince, and, ultimately, to plead.
To ask forgiveness. It can never know
the simple joy of a clarinet, the self-delighting
ripple of a trumpet, the surge of a keyboard,
or the unpretentious rhythm of a drum.
Words, no matter what their tempo,
are slowed to a hobble by thought.
They must drag the weight of their double lives
through the mental gate
before entering the body.
Music goes directly, while words
are our unique and devious invention
providing a fair approximation of our dust-bound being
that wishes nothing more than to dance. To sing.

BERLIOZ
Alack! my child is dead;
And with my child my joys are buried.
— Capulet
It was quite a concert, our city’s youth orchestra
performing Hector Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet .
Between the crescendos
I could hear Tybalt curse and Juliet sigh.
I could hear Friar Laur

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