Jazz Manhatta

Native Saint of Melancholy
I have made the pilgrimage:
Jazz Manhatta.

Over countless steel miles
of Long Island Railroad tracks
leading me into lethargic premonitions

of the Jewish Vulture Magic.
On the cement platforms
of Attica

or Alcatraz
I hear the voice:
Electric Coltrane

singing across the stars
and onto the oceans of the moon.
Transistors, undulating,

confessing creation
in nightmares.
On fire

flames beautiful
shouting from his mouth
In a triplet passion.

Father,
don't let us fall like soundtrack verses
of the lunatic dreams walking

into temptation.
Electric Coltrane,
salvation broadcast from shadows

into my heart.
Art escaping into the Monet colors
of the night sky

over Jazz Manhatta.
Standing before the pulpit,
unplugged from memories

and fleeting Bebop.
The bar, raised,
now broken-

Fading away into the stratosphere
and only a sad sermon remaining
on the pulpit,

Jazz Manhatta,
Bebop Gospel Message
from the lips of Electric Coltrane.