Jazz Poetry - "Thelonious Sphere Monk"

Thelonious Sphere Monk by Bill Corbett

Cold, the day you leave

you can use that hat.

Ahh Monk, the station fades

as the suburbs begin

you bent the notes right

they will not lose their ring.

I see your shuffle dance

up from the 5 Spot piano

and hear you, wordless, sing.

--From Boston Vermont (Zoland Books, 2000)

Note: William Corbett, born 1942, is an American poet, essayist, teacher, and editor who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Self-acknowledged influences on his work include jazz, Imagist poet William Carlos Williams, and classical Chinese poets. One can hear all these influences in this poem. He has taught writing at Harvard and MIT and is an editor for a small poetry publisher called Pressed Wafer.