i will give Misha credit, Santiago, Chile, 1994, her cassette tape, who is that? i asked, Sonny Rollins, that saxophone, that cool, that mood, jazz at its finest, fast-forward three years, my 1st san francisco apartment, sunday morning or afternoon, aiwa cd player spinning how are things in glocca morra? timeless, last of the greats, his sound will live for as long as forever exists.
You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6U7PY89bv8
north beach has changed, the spontaneity is gone, we used to just go out, to shop at city lights bookstore, to eat, to have a drink, to be in the city together, listen to music, jazz, or whatever, the city used to be a community, no one really knew what might happen any given night, at vesuvio’s or caffe trieste, or on broadway, people being people, san francisco people, with their freedom and self-expression, the edifices remain, but the past is past, now they shop amazon online, order uber eats, reserve on opentable, scrutinize tripadvisor, calculate with gps, where to go and when, the city has had a partial death, and no one really cares, why go back to the old ways? we are now more and more, part of the machine, technology guides us, separates us from –lets just go out and be.
astrud in black and white, bossa nova posterchild, rio de janeiro summer, probably first heard it in a west village cafe, turned any room into a beach, even in february new york city, samba power, brasil cool, we lost her, ms. gilberto, but the song lives on and on
again we remember
to love on
this day of
chocolate and red
hearts swoon or
pretend with hallmark
memories of
cold february wind
blew cupid arrows
and i loved
you too, all
of you, were
once my funny
valentine
when enough times passes
we begin to think they
are all dead
those jazz musicians
who cradled gold
instruments, lung life air
pulsating into
penetrating through everything
with their reverberating
notes of truth
it all ends
but his saxophone sound
is still here
and perhaps
will be
forever
He pretends to be a poet, but does he even like poetry?
Sawgrass shallows, dark forests and trellises, the
language of description, erudition, evoked through so
much longing to be heard, to be read. But what does
it mean? Instead, he writes about what he knows,
which most nights seems like not a lot, sometimes silence
or that most mundane of all arts, parenting, being a dad,
or he reads half pages of zen books while munching on
frozen blueberries, while trying to remember the pickup time
for ballet. No, he doesn’t live in Paris or London, or
New York, although San Francisco is a writerly city, that frigid
foggy place where he was once young, and a real poet
in his studio apartment with Chinese takeout night after night,
the J Church train rumbling, urban soundtrack mixed with
Sonny Rollins, oh yes, he was cool, back in the day, but now
he sits in the kitchen, barefoot, wondering where his socks are.
Daniel W. Polk 