celtic sonic langourings of the night

 

 

 

Tremolo

All that has been still an undertone,
Frets of memory half-heard deep
Below a hybrid croon of saxophone

        Or when King Oliver’s horn’s darker
       Notes warn a plantation child
       He’d die an obscure poolroom marker.

              A Bushman taps a hunting bow,
             One end humming between the lips,
               Drone of sound mesmeric and hollow.

                  At wedding gigs East Europe’s blues
                  In moods of a harmonic minor scale
                 Blare a wistful klezmer rumpus.

Fingers strum a blown mukkuri
As swung against an Ainu’s hips
A song of peace plucks a tonkor.

                          Once Turk or Khan, Rome or Greece,
                            Empires now where suns never fall,
                        A dominant bringing a dominant peace.

     But one space of chosen nodes,
    Mediant world of both/and plays
    In flexitime, in different modes?

                                        Given riffs and breaks of our own,
                                        Given a globe of boundless jazz,
                                        Yet still a remembered undertone,

         A quivering earthy line of soul
          Crying in all diminished chords.
             Our globe still trembles on its pole.


        - Micheal O'Siadhail










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