Decoy for Miles Davis

Joseph Zitt (1998)

"I'll play it first..."

A haiku
   spat      in asphalt

    turns its back
             turns
         back
                
    pinprick
            context
                
   crack the melody
   and          out
        stone
                 soup
   spills

            past memory
      beyond the groove
   
            turns
        back

   the
      voice
      heart
      soul
           gone perhaps
     before the blood
the final beat

the passage (
    bebop2cool2hard
    2modal2free2fun
    k2rock2shock2ov
    erthetop2droppe
    dout2pop2hiphop
           2stopped
)
      swift runs rising
      before
          the 
              elongated
                   fall

stones
    smiles
         ahead
             in the sky
                   
but the tone
      turns its back
               turns
               turns
          turns back
                 
"I'll play it now
           and tell you
        what it is

   later."

written for the Austin Poets At Large newsletter, October 1998