Wednesday, September 24, 2008

SAX POEM:1 by Mike Williams

it's a saxophone evening
& there's a blues singer
singing for whisky
& cigarettes
rain dances on cold tombs
& back in the woods
owls sit like judges
lovers in a doorway
hands frantic beneath coats
& the man playing sax
has a hat on the ground
with coins
he's feeling lucky
it's just another night in so many


This poem has spawned two published novels, Old jazz & The Music of Dunes (Fremantle Press) and has become one of the poems I have put under the pen of my protagonist, Frank Harmon. A very simple poem, really, but I have a strong attachment to it. I like to put it across at readings, along with some companion poems. I like the sound of it, the atmosphere, the rain, the owls, the jazz of it. I wrote it after walking home one night and seeing a busker in Northbridge. Three more poems followed and, after numerous drafts, the novel Old Jazz ...


Mike Williams
Mike Williams books can be found at http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/

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