Todd Moore and Raindog aka RD Armstrong
“I want to write a poem that will make the top of your head roll into your soup.” Todd Moore
This interview
originally appeared way back in September of 1997 in the Lummox. Since it appeared, Todd and I have become good friends. I met him for the first time [...]
Painting by Rigsby Smith
Eyes Like Mingus (For Steve Fowler)
Eyes like flint
like flecks of coal
like shiny bits of starless sky
trapped in the ruins of a slag heap
Eyes like molten steel
sullen and angry
piercing — a bullet finding its mark
like a jaguar
passionate and alive
yet hating the trap
pacing behind the bars
bars like a skeleton
trapped inside the mind
behind
Eyes like Mingus
like [...]
Zoot
I thought I saw the ghost of him
floating over the boulevard
at half past ten last night.
His tenor called to me
down the long corridor of
the Harbor freeway,
distant and haunting
like the final notes from
Micheline’s Hohner
lost in the screech of
brakes at ride’s end.
I’ve got it bad.
I thought I felt a strand of
moonbeams or was it
a string of notes, [...]
YardBird Burned (A duet written for voice and sax)
by RD Armstrong
YardBird burned
All Wick — No Candle
Made it to the sun and back
Unlike Icarus –
YardBird couldn’t burn out –
his spirit was the flame by which
HE burned.
YardBird burned
‘til there was only
a husk left
‘til all the notes –
the be-boppin’ bitty
black notes –
were piled at his feet
like cigar ash.
YardBird
swung [...]
The following poems are taken from the book ‘Fire and Rain’ by RD Armstrong aka Raindog. This book will be available for purchase June 1st. 2008. Just click on the above image to place your orders for this ‘MUST READ’.
Pueblo de las Putas
She stumbled down the sidewalk
fighting with a large white “sports” bag.
She wore [...]
