Eleventh Heaven

Satchmo on cloud 9 looking up to the eleventh heaven

If heaven is another way of looking,

Show me the eleventh

And, I’ll know I have gotten where I’m going.

Surprise me with hind-walking cats

Who know my name…

With triplet-enhanced background music,

And incandescent nighthawks that soar,

Infinitely silhouetted by salmon suns.

Everything,

I can imagine, aching,

Happening at the same time…

                                   

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Surrounded by curious sounds,

I never knew the wind in the trees

Would be so interesting.

            ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Gertrude Stein*

Doris Day

Sid and Nancy

If heaven exists I am convinced that there is more than one. I just can’t see Satchmo and Doris Day on a cloud with Johnny Rotten. A Gertrude Stein and a George Steinbrenner heavenly hereafter would seem to be mutually exclusive.

George Steinbrenner

Being only an opinion, my take on heaven has no scholarly basis. I have what can only be referred to as a, “preconceived notion.”

 I have not researched the subject of heaven. I would hate to have the product of intense, thorough research get in the way of my beliefs.

This being so, I have determined that that there are at least as many heavens as there are dimensions. And, since I have always been attracted to music from the eleventh dimension, I choose the eleventh.

I like the sound of that. The colors, form constructs, alien geometries, plants and animals resonate with my soul instrument. It is an odd number and that appeals to me.

If heaven is another way of looking at things, show me the eleventh.

                                                                                                ~ Peach

*Gertrude Stein (1935), photographed by Carl Van Vechten

all photos public domain

© 2012 Jimmy The Peach 

Talking -- with Charles Lloyd

Charles Lloyd

Sheets of swallows

swerve

outside my window,

and

disappear

down

the

drain

around the corner,

as

the saxophone

swings singing

into a slow song.

The melody dream streams

and spreads

where my heart starts.

The piano knows when (not) to play,

painting silent spots,

then, time-fingering the keys with

hummingbird kisses, wings brushing wings.

Drums, thrum –

running without touching down,

pushing the sound around.

The bass chases.

Soul

waves

wash ashore,

the music peaking,

then gently speaking

love’s secrets.

I turn my head…

hear the wind,

whisper-quiet…

h         a          r          m        o          n         y

Arlington, Virginia -- September 16, 2009 / November 4, 2012 -- Originally published in a more abbreviated form in Westward Quarterly (Spring, 2010)

My introduction to Charles Lloyd was around 1974 I paid fifty cents for a used vinyl record of the "Charles Lloyd in Europe" album. Atlantic 1966. Recorded live in Norway October 29, 1966. Charles Lloyd sax and flute, Keith Jarrett piano, Cecil McBee bass, Jack DeJohnette drums. First time I heard any of them. Still one of my favorite albums.

            My two favorite cuts on the album are “Tagore” and “Karma.” Go to 9:40 on the video to hear “Tagore.”

photo from Official Charles Lloyd Web Page
Charles Lloyd Bio

Miles

shhhhh... listen

Not a distance,

just more than a man since he’s gone.

Somewhat sculpted by anger

and an uncommon touch,

I hear he talked

to the floor with his horn.

The same note never played

the same way again.

Ah,

remember his silence

between the sounds?

Taught others to speak

for themselves

At the end

he still had more to say

in a new way.

         

So What.

                                                  Peach

                                                  Arlington, Virginia



photo public domain http://furiousmiles.com/about/

From the Book of Spring

from the Book of Spring

spring is behind

empty robin eggs…

geese are gone

Each page of the Book of Spring says something… nothing… everything. A volume filled with the sound of things arriving for the first time, of things returning. When taken together, the pages are a song of colors where there were no colors.

Sandhill Cranes and Whistling Swans arrive with spring then continue north before summer slips in.

Robins split from their winter Flockopolis and build nests of twitter, split hairs and side effects in tall bushes and spring trees, in steeples, edges of attics, and dabbed on brick ledges outside the common room window.

While they hook up, breed and brood, I ask the Commonwealth of Virginia, “Does Virginia have an official name for the color of a robins egg?”

“It’s light blue to you,” they say.

“For the record,” I whisper, “I hear eleven shades of blue I know are true.”

When every robins nest is empty

And the Tule Swan is gone,

Warm up with the first

Symphony of Summer Song.

Awaken scarlet-splashed blackbirds

In a mustard field at dawn…

Each year that much older,

Another season has moved on.

Written while the sun went down

NewMain, Virginia

- Peach

red-winged blackbird

photo Alan D. Wilson, www.naturespicsonline.com