We just follow on, he said,
fill up the spaces inbetween...
In between? What spaces in between?
I have no words to tilt against
this power,
this glorious explosion of the
soul;
around the room, still the notes
are disentangling themselves from
the dusty corners,
shaking cobwebs from their golden
hair;
some lie sleeping,
warm as apricots and sweet;
others, slipping down the smooth,
cool glasses,
sink exhausted and ecstatic both
to loll in damp and amber rings
on shadowed tables;
forced in frenzy through the gates
of brass,
showers of them dream and dance,
sob and sing,
while handfuls, raw and bloody,
fight it out in roof-smoke...
I find no spaces, anywhere for
words
to follow on.
(May,
1987 - a reading with The Perdido
Street
Jazz Band at the Malvern Fringe)
