Smoke filled jazz club.
Those in tune tap fingers on sticky table tops,
keep time while rhythmic brushes
swish on snare drum tops.
Others slump in chairs,
empty shot glass littered tables.
I lean forward, waiting . . .
for Sandburg’s oozing saxophones.

Escapists. Jazz aficionados.
Musician wannabes.
Tourists like me.
We all sit while tired bouncer
stands outside struggling to hear riffs
between terse turndowns of fake IDs.
Another night. Another dollar.
A job’s a job. Music or not.

Written for Day 1 of NAPOWRIMO. April is National Poetry Writing Month and the challenge is to write one poem, every day in April. Prompts are given daily at  https://www.napowrimo.net

I’m joining my Australian friends and writing to the early bird prompt for those “whose geographic relationship with the international date line means that April 1 arrives a bit earlier than it does at National Global Poetry Writing Month HQ.” Here in Boston, it’s 9 AM on March 31 but it’s the start of April 1 in Sydney.

The early bird prompt? “Write your own poem in which you refer to a specific writer or artist (or work of literature/art) and make a declarative statement about want or desire. Set the poem in a particular, people-filled place, like a restaurant, bus station, museum, school, etc.”

NOTES: References to Dizzy Gillespie, famous jazz musician; and Carl Sandburg’s iconic poem, Jazz Fantasia. Image from Bing Create.