3 Poems by Ryan Ritchie

FOR JACK

nothing any wordsmith can do with a keyboard matches
the beauty that leaps from the subconscious mind of the
jazz musician. we sit and think, type, sit and think some
more, never achieving improvisational nirvana. what
jazzmen do fills the nighttime sky, brings us closer to
god than any sunday service. for us, improv becomes a
mishmashofowordsthatdontmakesense when all we really
want is to blow, blow, blow. to tickle the blacks and whites,
massage the low end and swing all the way home.