LISTENING TO MUSIC
1
“Blues in the Night”
I close my eyes to listen but last night’s
dream turns up to distract me: with a big
kitchen knife I’m preparing a fish for
our dinner when it moves I’m terrified
what should I do: kill it quick to avoid
causing more pain but the blade won’t go in
deep enough I can’t tell if the music
is making me less afraid or more now
I recall that old Gestalt therapy
trick where everything in the dream turns out
[in fact to be you—so am I the fish
the knife am I this music hauling up
the dream from where it would rather stay?]
2
“Piece of My Heart”
in another dream—closer to morning
when I can’t distinguish the dark from the
light—I am being guided by Lor Gill
through a difficult passage in a wood
with a firm hand on my arm as if he
is the older even though when I first
saw him he was an infant in Elaine’s
arms yet here he grins like a big brother
and though when I wake I know that he’s dead—
motorcycle crash at thirty-three—in
the dream all I noticed was the beauty
of his youth and how I trusted him
3
“Gymnopedies”
Denise in class always told us that dream
is our channel to the unconscious: to
be respected for its wisdom and so
I used to write down every dream quickly
afraid I’d forget it sometimes now I
turn up the radio make breakfast read
the paper afraid I’ll remember it:
like this morning but now even late in
the day my mind is too clear so this dream—
familiar—coolly presents itself:
I just can’t get on the bus with all these
shopping bags takeout coffees instrument
cases and no one will tell me what to
do not Denise dead now twenty years and
not Satie—though I can hear that he’s trying
4
“Night Train”
no wonder it’s been said music is the
perfect art: here when it’s here sufficient
then gone record it if you must listen
again but you’ll never see or touch it
the others try hard but always seem to
leave things lying around: stone words paint splash
blade crash hand on your arm nagging smell of
someone’s mortality who might that be?
no wonder I took up the sax how else
could I even approach perfection—at
night in the bar like the best kind of dream
I strap it on and by dawn forget everything
OBJECT PERMANENCE
when we go somewhere together I like
to be first out the door “I’ll wait in the
car” my wife closes up so I won’t fret
about checking the stove and all the locks
if one of us goes and the other stays
I like being the traveler: as in
the old song: “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home
To” and so she is each time nice by the
fire . . . under stars chilled by the winter . . . all
that I could desire . . . August moon burning
above . . . so nice paradise while if it’s
me at home her out I’m thinking instead:
supermarket mass murder kidnapping
car crash—“The Wreck on the Highway” I went
to the scene of destruction but I didn’t
hear nobody pray I guess this means I’m
stuck at that earlier stage in the life
of infants: they will get upset when you
leave the room because for them you have ceased
to exist they don’t yet grasp that there is
any “world” outside themselves later they
develop “object permanence” (could there
be a better name for a rock and roll
band?) they know that all existence does not
depend on their presence this is of course
a comfort they’ve realized that you will
be back while for me at home there’s nothing
except her absence but with luck we will
get old together and maybe by then—
her face her body so familiar—I
won’t lose sight of her in my mind even
when one of us walks out into the dark
FEBRUARY 1981: THE SYSTEMATIC MURDER OF BLACK CHILDREN
This is not a political poem:
giving out your “views” as they say in that
sense of democratic debate kicking
it around in discussion and argument
would be in this case a distraction so
I went with a title that’s plain fact you
could quickly verify: just discovered
in Atlanta the body of the 17th
(seventeenth) Black child murdered within the past
year such a fact laid out so simply hard
to forget might stick in your head awhile
reminding you—maybe—whenever you
see a Black child that they are miraculous
what do I mean? we need to behave of
course with love and respect toward all
children but as for Black children you have
to remember that someone is out to
kill them why? because they are Black children
and so let them command your loyalty
your most clear and fierce attention they are
rare they are in peril fewer of them
will survive those who do are yes miracles
you must treat them like the bearers of your
only hope for an end to the murders of Black children.
“FRIENDS IN DREAMS” (SECOND DRAFT)
when I wrote this poem the first time I—
like you—was of course further from my own
death than I am now in that first draft (if
I can call it that) dead friends enter our
dreams “through the parking lot” where we
maybe
have forgotten our appointments with them
there is some comfort in that we can see
their faces but they remain distant but now
twenty years later as you’d expect it’s
not the same: here is Big Jack Johnson he’s
moved closer to me Jack who let me play
with his blues band one night and kept me there
who brought me to Clarksdale Mississippi—
thus changing my life now Jack stands in
my
doorway not speaking though his smile is
just as I remember and the next night
here’s my pal Emmett who invited me
to start up a poetry magazine—
thus changing my life Emmett too comes
close maybe he’s about to read me one
of his new poems wouldn’t that be a
trip as we used to say do the dead keep
on writing poems? well anyway these
two were both silent though welcoming if I
dream again perhaps Jack will smile and say
“look out Dick grab that sax and back me up”
Emmett might really show me that poem—or
even hand me a guitar so I can
strum along in my basic way while we
sing together “I come to the Garden
alone while the dew is still on the roses”
such dreams I guess might be pointing to my
own progress toward some end I have a
sense
of what that might be though I’m not sure—I
think next time I will ask them about it
Note: The Hymn, “In the Garden Alone” is by C. Austin Miles.
Dick Lourie is a poet and musician (sax, trumpet, guitar), who has been practicing both professions for more than fifty years. He lives in Chelsea, Massachusetts. These poems are from his book Jam Session and Other Poems (Hanging Loose Press) forthcoming this fall. In much of his poetry he seeks to infuse his work as a poet with his work as a player of roots, blues, and jazz music.
