Light pours through the west end and floods the wooden floors of our home. James is in the front room, dancing. His clunky, horse-like heels stomp to a syncopated rhythm, following the dizzy-eyed direction of his four-year-old vision, rather than my music. His wobbly, outstretched arms crash up and down like cymbals, and his fingers chase after the bouncy melody playing over his head.
It’s improvisation with a white balloon. And his eyes, to me, look just like Louis Armstrong’s happy ones.
Jazz is hard to define, easy to feel. Its stimulating improvisation sways over our heads and wiggles into our hearts. It’s the jazz artist who knows how to play — and how to stay like a child.
Because May Play was such a romping good time at Tweetspeak last month, we want to continue playing all the way through June. So put on your old zoot suit, grab your swing dance muse, and toss out some big band grooves. We’re going to add a little jazz and chase some white balloons.
Don’t think too much. Feel it. Follow it. See where it goes.
Here’s how June Jazz works …
If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing to Every Day Poems.
1. On Mondays, the Every Day Poem in your inbox becomes a chord progression. Find your own tone. Build an idea around a single poem line. Just let yourself go and write a found poem, baby.
2. Tweet your poems to us. Add a #junejazz hashtag so we can find it and maybe share it with the world.
3. Or leave your found poem here in the comment box.
We’ll read your tweets and share some of your weekly play each week. At the end of the month, we’ll choose a winning poem and ask the playful poet to record his or her poem to be featured in one of our upcoming Weekly Top 10 Poetic Picks.
Here’s today’s Every Day Poem. Now go jazz it up.
Photo by Express Monorail. Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Matthew Kreider.
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Buy a year of Every Day Poems, just $2.99— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In May we’re exploring the theme Trees.
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Monica Sharman says
Oh! I was just coming over here to say I was sad that it’s a non-May Monday. And then, this! Thanks for the cheery news.
Matthew Kreider says
Monica – It’s pretty great news! Just goes to show you — one never knows what surprises will show up at Tweetspeak! 🙂
Speaking of “cheery”, Monica, I must tell you: I love to hear your voice around here. You always get me smiling. 🙂
By the way, don’t you just love the pic of the balloons?
L. L. Barkat says
I love the idea of June Jazz. Just the sound of it tickles the tongue 🙂
Rosanne Osborne says
Giving a Fig
Wake up, Eve,
it’s the day to name the trees.
Let’s start with sycamore.
Why, Adam, why call
it sycamore? Looks like the tree
of life to me.
No, that’s a silly name for a tree.
Look how tall it is? It wants
a majestic name.
But look at the fruit,
those luscious figs, they promise
life we’ve never known.
Eve, you never see the beauty,
those heart-shaped leaves,
the variations of green. . .
Adam, you don’t have a practical bone
in your body. Always mooning
over shapes and designs. . .
Well, it’s my responsibility
and I’m calling it
a sycamore.
Let’s not argue.
Here, I’ve pealed a fig.
Let’s eat its fruit.
Donna says
She pulled through
Like a small boat
Refusing to lose
Refusing to capsize
Refusing to be small at all
She pulled through
Like a small boat
As the big boats thrashed
Against the waves
Leaving this world
All twisted and sinking,
Wishing for
A heart like that
She pulled through
Like a small boat
Chris Yokel says
The trees of October,
are all nearly over
the fire sparks,
falls out
in gold-orange-red.
Yet standing audacious,
its flamboyance outrageous
it defies the onset
of the blue, black, and gray.
davis nancy rosback says
a little haiku for juniejazz this week…
http://alittlesomethin.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/bow-down/
Monica Sharman says
A mother, silent
and her baby, sick
knew it was the wrong
time for crying. Though
her sadness was bigger
than the soldiers, they
were the ones with guns.
A baby was one life, but
others were in the bus hidden
in the muck. What she did
saved the others but required
a shovel to bury the sacrifice.
Monica Sharman says
By the way, I didn’t start that poem with this in mind, but as I wrote the first few words, a scene in the final episode of M*A*S*H came to my head, and it became a poem about that. Funny how that happens to a poem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye,_Farewell_and_Amen#Plot
Donna says
okay so doing EDpoems and Julia Cameron a the same time drags me a little bit (HA!) beyond the spaces I want to dwell… so I practice just visiting, not dwelling there. And I practice allowing, not forbidding. And yesterday’s poem took my breath away and that child… that child… i woke up today with that child still in my mind… and so i wrote a poem for her “as close as a promise” http://unmixingcolors.typepad.com/along_the_way/2012/06/as-close-as-a-promise.html
Rosanne Osborne says
Gone
Mother will vanish like sleet,
Cool, prickly sensations
on the tongue you cannot taste.
Memory will linger after
her body has drifted down
the hall and out the door.
Impossible to recover
the sense of embrace,
the cord of birth’s binding.
Receding into the sepia
within an ornate frame
dimensions collapse.
You will become an orphan
that a quarter of a century
cannot place in a foster home.
Maureen Doallas says
Already it’s October
and cold, the house sick
with our outraged hoping,
and silent in a clot of snow.
We’re all maneuvering
the sadness of brief summer
passion, the wrong thing
we made of ourselves;
the baby, the goodness after.
We, all of us, falter
and yet, of the earth,
pull through. Years vanish
in the slow grim gray of time.
path of treasure says
Love the idea of June Jazz— glad you’re keeping it going!
The days are breath
freezing in mid-air,
petrified, succumbing
to the cold. We did not
see her coming; pain slowly
filling our house. Tears
drip like sleet, slapping
ground, filling our brief
years with liquid hope.
Rosanne Osborne says
When Wars Begin
Outraged in the snow
at the sheer audacity
of the attack,
his anger burned
through his mittens.
The snow ball
in his hand
melting
to an icy
missile.
Hands
that created
turned to hands
of aggression.
Kicking snow,
a restless yearling,
he hurled his charge
at Mason’s innocent cat,
tears of frustration freezing
on cheeks softened by the touch
of compassion and constancy of care.
Matthew Kreider says
I love all the poetry play and sharing here! 🙂 And we’re just a few days in! Welcome to June Jazz, everyone!
Liz says
a poem-a small one
Worms spill out onto the smoldering sidewalk
Trees bow down to listen
and even the dig sound of a shovel
is keeping the beat with the sound of jazz
from a decades old radio.
Matthew Kreider says
Liz – I just retweeted your poem and added the #junejazz hashtag because I didn’t want it to get lost in Twitter-space. But then I saw you had just posted it here also! 🙂
Matthew Kreider says
And, Rosanne, I’ve really been enjoying your poems!
Lane says
The shovel is my brother,
a good companion
as we play together
in the dirt…
and I am bigger
for hoping—
as I dig,
as I turn soil
upside down,
and a few worms, too.
I imagine
the tiny roots
climbing low, low, low,
while tiny shoots
climb high.
Sunday’s sunny.
Thursday’s rainy.
And, in spite of the July fourth
storm,
all red rumbling, blue bruising winds, and hailstone white,
the beauty
pulls through,
with small burst of bright passion.
At first,
silent and small
as a hummingbird hovering,
the shoots poke up their green heads,
then, choose to linger a while.
My garden,
solid goodness,
feeds me in hope,
as pure as snow.
Lane Arnold
© June 7, 2012
lanearnold.co/blog
Lane Arnold says
Shovels
lean
In the peach tree’s shade.
Juice cascades,
Down my chin,
As I eat deliciousness and
Join in
Summer’s laughter.
#junejazz
Rosanne Osborne says
Contentment
A worm from a clot of dirt
is relentless, even dogged,
in pursuit of elemental living
the champion of all things
organic, he tills his own soil,
aerates and fertilizes
gives back as much as he takes,
composting as he goes. Work
has its own reward, survival.
His inner drummer sounds
a constant beat, and his life
does its own dirt dance.
[http://catholicfamiliesusa.org/|Yulanda|Yuls|Yul|Yully|catholicfamiliesusa.org|www.catholicfamiliesusa.org] says
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