Riff

the song is a long riff

played delicate like

at midnight in July

thundering when storms march

in battalions thumping polyrhythmic

oompahs

the song is improvised

over rumbles of a sliding scale

holding long notes that float

disarmingly

as water striders skating black splashes

where tumbled rocks wear green skirts

the song pulls wind into snarling trees

syncopating elements into a signature

timed

with layered passages of woods over brass

blue notes swimming down low

down there

in gravelgrinding undercurrents

eddying into echoes of echoes

of echoes

 

 

David Trudel     ©  2013

 

 

Little Brown Rooster

Little brown rooster

Sings the blues all day

Calling for his little hens

Singing that he wants to play

He struts and dances

They dance away

Little brown rooster

Sings the blues all day

Little brown rooster

Sings the blues all day

As nighttime falls

Things fade to black

That hen house is hopping

Like a jumped up Cadillac

Little brown rooster

Don’t sing the blues at night

He’s too busy dancing

With those hens and getting tight

Little brown rooster

Don’t wake up at dawn

He only gets up at half past jazz

With a quiet kind of yawn

Little brown rooster

Sings the blues all day

Little brown rooster

Sings the blues all day

David Trudel  ©  2013

Windsong

In the absence of dictation from angels

I search for something to say

But there’s nothing

I listen to the wind murmur its lament

Shaking songs from dark sentinels swaying overhead

Playing riffs on tree branches

Like it was the third set at Birdland

I can’t interpret this kind of jazz

So I blow that joint

Walk away

I wander over to the lake

Watch choruses ripplechase across water

Waterwalking splashes marking that dance

Above, clouds spout soliloquies

Dramatically written in raindrops or tears

Each page torn out and tossed away

Like I dismiss my random thoughts and fleeting fears

To listen to this moment and what it says

When I finally get it

I hear angels laughing

 

 

David Trudel  ©  2013