Poems

Buddy Caesar and His Starlighter

Everything’s going up in smoke.
Lake Island’s oaks hug mid-
summer’s chemical sunset,
a slow rusty Philadelphia burn
burring dusty treetops, first stars
coming on, and thee neighborhood
turns out, kings and queens
in beach chairs, other unfurred
creatures on blankets, or in trees,
all eyes on the hopping crowd
before the bandstand, hard-
pedaling In the Mood then Cherokee.
Buddy cues slurpy trombones
and even the fatter no-no’s rise
and shuffle to the dancing ground,
oly style jitterbugs spiking dirt
at the century’s end. I’m off to the side,
taking things in, I’ve learned to do that,
to watch, to smile at the fire, but now
this flutter-tongue solo breaks me down,
dust spanks sandals, mules, and sneaks,
start divot whiter int he blacker blue,
time feels round and I’m in it,
with twilights’s jumpy dago sounds,
awake now, swinging with a stranger.