a.d. winans | memories & the demise of jazz in north beach

MEMORIES

No more jazz at the Black Hawk
No more jazz at The Cellar
No more jazz in the Fillmore
Just ghostly boarded down doors

Gone the clinking glasses
The waitress who always knew
When your glass was empty
Casting her spell on your
Inflamed nerve ends

The Black female crooner
Hitting her notes
Like a midnight train
Breaking the stillness of night
With its long wailing whistle
Her sultry smile imbedded
In your skin
Long after the closing hour
Leaving you sweating
Limp like the first minute
After a wet dream

THE DEMISE OF JAZZ IN NORTH BEACH

No cool cats in North Beach anymore
No cool cats blowing the horn
No be-bop snapping fingers
No fallen angels spreading their legs
On the way home after
A conversation with God
No black cats improvising the blues
No white dudes riding the midnight express
No stoned soul train musicians
Blowing mean clean notes, suffocating
In the smoking mirrors of the mind
Gone buried in the decadence
Of collective madness

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