Fragment IV.

The only Jazz is just an elegant

ballroom dance somebody

danced one night when they

got overdressed.

The only Jazz is a standard

slow dance that stopped to fade

from 45 to 33 to 16

revolutions a century to just a

moment that a skipping needle

stopped to lift you up

off the ground,

The only Jazz is for be-bop

virtuosos

who play riffs with streams

like the waterfalls and then slip

and fall and brush it off like it

was all, you know…only the

melody,

And the only jazz Coltrane.

played he played once,

or maybe twice

when he heard it while he blew,

wondering where the jazz had

always been…

it’s the only Jazz nobody knew.

-Albert Turner Goins, Sr.