Home » Jazz Articles » Jazz Poetry » Trumpet

Trumpet

By Gordon Marshall
November 20, 2010
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for Forbes Graham

Arc shoots to treble tongue trip

fingertip tapping valve tops

traps the sinuous sound round

the quartet's quartal vibe, tribe

of truth, sooth of soothing

tunes turned back on themselves

lost in vertical vertigo. Then

the trumpet picks them up,

passes brass baton unto

the soldered sound until now

a bric-a-brac. Attack! The spear

appears, piercing the pieces

of ear shrapnel, strings them

together like necklace for

Nubian princess, on the Nile.

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