Poem by Geoffrey Heptonstall

This Sunday I'll be joined in the studio by poet Geoffrey Heptonstall. Here's one of his poems about New Orleans.

JAZZ                                                                      


And only to wear blue.
When you talk about love.
Afterward.
When there is no-one
These days are out of time.

That we may begin
To see love’s changing.
I hear alone what you say,
How a sense of indigo falls
In base resonance
Almost motionless.

Scent of jasmine, wild
In the derelict square,
At once we name
Invisible moonlight.
The rhythm of water
Sighs false innocence,
The way a cymbal sound spins.

In the cool of first light
The river scenes shimmer.
What seems a city
Is distant sunrise.
Contraries of night pale
Into harmonies
As morning moves:
Every day a truth revealed.

How you catch the essential
Syncopation,
The stair well chorus,
Impromptu sensations
Of the world at work
Soon we see our masters
In seasons they cannot control.
Count the beat before they speak:
How many lies to Babylon?                                                      

And after music, silence
Days like these are uneasy
With desire all the way down,
Walking out from here
As the mood changes
With phases of love.
This way the waters
Can come no more
Once the heat burns
Every ocean dry.