sleep no more

the way you walked on stage, with an edge, an oomph, a mild jitter, made me nervous for you. a semi-bow, a casual wave, and an applause behind, you sit at the piano stool with a semi-hunch. you are my jazz maestro, an imagination of blues, a '60s metaphor. a dazzle in your bow-tie, corduroy and pink velvet embrace your unused, fragile axis. you pat yourself, say a prayer, look at me and smile. uncontrollably, like a demonic maniac. and hiss at me. and snarl, and thump your chest, and scream from the edge of your musicality, your blood jazz genesis, your honky-tonk. everyone in the wide rotunda settles down. the lights dim, the breathing stops, and all you hear in the cerebral dark is a heavy drone of air-conditioners. in repetition, and kink. maniacal, with paranoia of the uneven reciprocity of a humanized parasitism. as the lights turn on, and poke your eyes, you begin your art. so chaotic, so obscure, so romantic and lyrical. the music you make, the category of your creative compositions, dazzle and charm in the summertime rooms, the springtime blooms. the mechanical biz of a snare composition, of a hybridized tom-tom melancholy, of a swoosh and caress of your unapologetic cymbals, of the magnetic metaphors of black and white wood-sticks, of pain, and fear, and frills and yells, of your inner soul howling in the glitterati of nostalgics, awake and asleep in a cross-revolution, in cross-continuity of a pediatric obsession, and a childhood mockery of separation anxiety. of your background of warmth, of your country child, of your black incest, and above all, the range of your limitless talent, made me swell up and purge in the midst of a binding audience. to a point of gratitude and respect, to the imagination of your febrile pulsating imagery, to the understatement of your poetic compositions, and inspirations, your life story of native distress. they wanted to burn the care edge of my fingers, so i may never have made my song. to the cowardice they shared, the fear of your fame, to the schizophrenics on the song boats, and the psychotics and neurotics that beat you to paralysis, you never spoke your words. but you sang to them, the cogent hymn, st james infirmary. the entertainer of louis. of the rock-and-roll, the hymn and blues, the peak of a drum-rolling, eye-boggling, mind-chilling, bone-grilling spectacular display of parallel utopias. in a musical whir of the harmonaboard, with the clanging, cluttering, chuckling, giggling bell oracle, spin pinnacle, levitating potency of creation crafts; this is the faculty of your birth. this music, your chorus, your name definition, your soul perforate. J x. sleep no more.