Another look at Lonnie’s Lament

 The following poem was partly inspired by one of my favorite Coltrane compositions. It appears in the NJ public television documentary I did and in my book “Ideas of Improvisation”. Here is a revised version of the poem that is much closer to what I was always trying to do. 

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION WITH SUSPENDED CHORDS

( for G.S.)

 

Mainly because

it was a Thursday

(which was her Monday),

and she was walking by

as if bent by something 

too heavy to be carried

in her hands,

and I thought I heard 

her sigh like a parchment

unscrolling in the wind

and recalled Lonnie

(who you might not know)

not Lonnie who pawned

his wedding band 

to feed the penny slots

nor Lonnie from The Hill

who always seemed

half a slice short

of a sandwich,

but Lonnie from

'Lonnie's Lament'

—and here she

cocks her head and

wrinkles her nose—

maybe because 

whatever seemed to slant 

Lonnie’s rain so sideways

also caused Coltrane 

to raise his saxophone

and vanish into a wail

that nearly matches 

the indigo swish

of her Monday motion—

those legs almost legato 

as piano lines

or her bassline

of hair that plunges

like a black Niagara

when she turns

and shakes it free—

and now our eyes 

briefly meet—

which she can't know

unzips the earth underneath

and makes me want 

to kneel & pray 

to spend the rest of my days

trembling and naked

in a maple barrel—

falling forever through 

her obsidian mane.