Up from the rafters of the underfloor, the old man forces the his sax to whisper out the birth of favored notes. His fingers strain and shoulders ache but he plays from his mind the songs he knows, remembering the clubs and dancers, the circling smoke and passionate eyes absorbing the music. In his … More THE UNDERFLOOR
Songs of dreams jump the river, heavy with nights and clouded rains. Scuffed shoes on the beach and shirt tails shake the wind. The Nickel Bar calls the faithful by aroma, even the sour and stale from the evening before. Johnny comes home, proud to be standing. The hope of many buried in suitcases … More THE NEXT CURVE
He had a tattoo on his forearm of a face, faded through the years, even he can’t remember who it is. A cat rubs against his leg. He sips casually on a root beer. His boots dull from travel. Hair black as a night cave, pushed back flat like a helmet shined with grease. … More LESTER
Dreams grow on billboards, some are painted on the sides of barns. Out of Chicago on 66, winds at my back, passing brick churches, racing freight trains to St. Louis, where a river heads south as I push past growing fields where families work for peanuts while harvesting corn as I move onto Oklahoma, … More ROUTE 66
Cloud cover and rainy days challenge my wings. I enjoy the change, the rumbling of intention, flashes of heavenly combat releasing mist before it pours. Rain is the old of the skies washing everything new. Like a baby waking, crying over everything, making day come to them. Rain brings up a delirium of … More COME ON RAIN
There was a hot rain streaming to heaven onto cobblestone streets. Misty warm baked sun breezes blow steady like the sax man, blanketing the city from work worn docks up to the statue in Jackson Square. New Orleans offers dreams beneath magnolias and rattling frontons. Broken souls sleep off the city on street cars … More CRESCENT CITY
The stage is ablaze with cigarette smoke. Brass finger keys howl from the sax man tapping gold from Gabriel’s horn. Alley cats sing the nine lives to back room shadows where Tom Waits breaks the words from jumbled unwashed dreams and Ginsberg works the beast from his pen while Kerouac reaches for starry nights over … More RELEASING WORDS
I got me a guitar. The life of my hands jumps the strings, forcing words out my mouth with a sound of thunder popping, so remember, this ain’t no opera, where neon lights crackle with sizzle and busted dreams lay scattered in alley suitcases, cracked open like eggs snapping on a griddle of grease, spattering … More DRINKING RAIN
There’s a bucket of dreams hanging off my pillow with fingers of thoughts twisting my inner gears into faces from yesterday or childhood where summers warmth was pure with mornings lifting off the aroma of dew soaked canvas and blossoming lilacs, jumping into morning before the birds and the dust of breezes. I’m pulling … More A SLEEP VEIL
The walls move in on him, pressing out the vintage of his flavor, forcing a banquet of jazz into drunken lazy air where lipstick releases secrets and gin holds no lies as the music burns through the smoke of last night while morning slaps the creases of a sun between chairs and over faded … More SLOW MOVING
Roger Singer 