A smooth river. Rich banks of sand. A log without roots loitering far from home. Tree dripping moss. Snaking branches. A dirt road. A home at the end where I live. Trees boasting gnarled thickness. A deep legacy. Vines with fingers. Leaves with eyes to the sun. Ghosts at the gate. Leaves of autumn lay … More A DEEP SOUTH
Lay down thick the notes soft like cotton covering wide with sweet movable jazzy air rolling like engines full of steam boiling hot down long tracks soaking the land with notes catching people from behind and all over with the blend too strong to ignore like coffee breaking open the morning as clouds slide smooth … More ROLL ON THE JAZZ
From the open door I pass daily on the Rue des Lombards lined with lilac bushes, I lean to the sound of a piano; I pause with curious ears. Athletic fingers prompt the song to spill unwrapped to me, circling like a scarf, holding my thoughts, catching me out of … More RUE des LOMBARDS
Celestial curtains cover him with a design of plenty. He breathes alive the bass, jazzing the room with engine pulsing sounds. . His hair is black and thick, like obsidian crystals crushed from stars. The beauty of his face and voice release like midnight bats carving the sky. Highways of angels step up, securing a … More JAZZING UP
He knows trouble. and the songs and loss. The nights past mornings where the jazz patiently waits for him like a faithful dog with good eyes waiting for a chance to release. He knows about black moons and shadows whispering and back doors of places he called home for … More FAITHFUL WITH TROUBLE
The notes rattled the chains in his head; souls marching, singing the pain of long days lost to labor for another man’s dream. Tears jaggedly cut his dusted cheeks, coursing rivers equal with oceans once crossed, added up and stacked onto the forever of years lost. Dust and sand kick up from under the shoes … More WITH SONG
The molasses of sound dripped slow flavoring him since youth when jazz got onto his ear like a propeller wash of beats making a whirr and buzz like coffee all night and golden arms with trumpets slivering the truth out of him surfacing with a suddenness like food slipping from the fingers of angels into … More YOU GOT ME RIGHT
Sidewalk chatter open curtains honest hands sanskrit stories of wishing wells falling stars and fire escapes on summer nights when breezes are absent and the city heats while weak fans labor under blankets of humidity making summer sweat into frustration rain washing off sidewalk chalk that dusty carpet from innocent hands creating still colored life … More CEMENT CANVAS
Smooth sweet wood mellow messages warmly delivered like summer rain rich with flavor notes of chocolate candy for ears rolling sweetness through the head into the fingers and tapping toes like running winds pulsing and pleasing falling with purpose wrinkling a shirt or a dark hat then dripping coolly … More HE CAN PLAY
FROM HIS SOUL The bass player was full of the night and shadows of dark. Emotion spirits jumped from the strings sliding into ears where bones rattled In a storm of winds running wild from his fingers a picture of jazz twists from his soul.
Roger Singer 