Most read ▸
Frank Marshall Davis
Today the rain
is an aged man
a gray old man
a curious old man
in a music store
Today houses
are strings of a harp
soprano harp strings
bass harp strings
in a music store
The ancient man
strums the harp
with thin long fingers
attentively picking
a weary jingle
a soft jazzy jangle
Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha
-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible,
cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle
cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums,
traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans — make two people fight
on the top of a stairway and scratch each other's eyes
in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat
pushes up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . .