The Hour of Blue

               nickles of daylight spent,
               night an empty pocket. . .

. . .caught between thought and sleep,
coffee pumping blood, veins, arteries
needled by handsewn sentences, mind
  stained paper, alphabet letters frenzied,
  no, ordered, glissandoes colored crooked
  striped, all very one two three, by ear,
    not note, sentence in the word, in the word
    the meaning, mode, Church of God of Prophesy,
    circumference of continuity, hysteria
of complacency, declaration of blue jukebox
fugue thumped on tin pianos in one thousand-
ten towns, chords of words from seven notes,
  ear drum drummer tongue bursting the beat,
  split tympanum slurred electric trombone slide—
  sentence in the word, the word the meaning merged,
    paradox of complexity,
    the word spoken, buried, unearthed
    still the word, vowels handworked, creweled,
double double u, conundrums drumming,
silent tongued shoes sloshing diphthongs,
dimple of an s, slick c, curved r, suspended
  animation: apostrophes overhovering a wobble
  of words, melange, gumbo of sound, fingersnap,
  CLAP, jazz piano fingers, symphonic hands, clavicle,
    cello and oboe legato, key of G, C, A—
    minor fugue in B-flat black-keyed cash:
    $20 dinners, a raw taste in my mouth,
no currency (t)o (i)nsure (p)romptness,
no saddle of lamb, filet beef, veal mousse—
  dark light beer, ragtime piano rolls, slaw,
  red-eye on meat and potatoes, clotted throat,
    scaling tuna from bones, insides gutless, gutted,
    Bonita and Albacore, Minerva and Waltham, slow
dance the waltz of the blues . . . two, three,
one, two, three-quarter two-step stop time, one
  blues’ husky moan: “Bessie Mae, Bessie Mae Mucho
  (female fine-tuned bass player in an all male jazz band)
    —eleven after thirty the hour of blue, monochrome
    blue, mean blue, median, mode, human woman’s minstrel
heart red-tired ’round midnight, ’round (SOME)
  midnight (DAY) nothing fair or sacred, ’round
    midnight (MY) kind of blue, ’round midnight
(PRINCE) ’round midnight (WILL) ’round midnight (COME)
  ’round midnight cheap talk ain’t small:
    only punctuation holds my tongue.