pulse

You’ll find this lively musical mural in downtown Langley, B.C. (Photo © 2013 by V. Nesdoly)

“Music to me is like breathing—
I don’t get tired of breathing,
I don’t get tired of music” – Ray Charles

music is the moon-pull of the blood
it snares the heartbeat
in hypnotic rhythms
of smoky blue jazz

it snares the heartbeat
with swaying taproots
of smokin’ hot jazz
while husky voices croon

swaying taproots
of sashaying saxophones
those husky voices croon
a pan flute of echoes

and sashaying saxophones
fingers snap, feet tap
a spoon band of echoes
and triple-tonguing trumpets

hands clap, toes tap
voice hums, whistle parrots
those triple-tonguing trumpets
circulating in the bell tower of my head

voice hums, whistle parrots
the hypnotic rhythms
circulating in the bell tower of my head
for music is the moon-pull of the blood

© 2012 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

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June is African-American Music Appreciation Month in the U.S. I discovered that fact on the Brownilocks website (my go-to place when I want to find out what’s being celebrated when).

When I read that, I thought immediately of the poem, above, that I wrote in 2012. I was part of Tabatha Yeatts’ poem swap that summer and she gave the quote above the poem as a prompt for us.

I sent the poem to my swap partner, and later entered it in a contest, where it garnered an “Editor’s Pick”  and was published in the Summer 2014 issue of Time of Singing.

Music of all kinds has opened up for me in the last few weeks. That’s because the car we recently bought has no CD player. In my search for what to do for music especially on long trips (can’t travel without lots of music!), my son suggested we subscribe to Spotify. I did and find I can download tunes to play offline and the Bluetooth receiver in the car cordlessly picks up what’s on my iPad. Woot! We’re groovin again.

This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by MsMac at Check It Out.