May 2005

For J

HOT SAX POEM

 

Because you live on the deep side

of your desire on fire

in the depths of all your connections

 

and symbols line up, bling,

like a jackpot machine

 

the saxophone without words,

a breath you take before I breathe it

and all its hot sax poems

wake up an edgy hypothesis

 

that perhaps love was drowning

somewhere between affection

and a collective unconscious

drive that pushes the music

right up to the small regions

of the moment when thinking

goes awry and bodies go

their own ways.

 

The sax gets messy

Spits it all back in your face

The torture, the ache

The desire on fire, the feeling

At a loss to explain

The hypothesis …

 

And the warm way things work out

To keep us up at night, wake

To the still tingling places

Where the hot sax licks

Went over the edge.

Photo by Eugene Brown

Copyright Jimmy Warner, 2005