The Love Note Café

The Silver Twilight Refrain

The tone of each note rose and fell perfectly imperfect, as the dancer was accustomed to at such concerts.

The cool hard floor against her bare feet. Her raised fingertips effortlessly tickle the hot humid breeze floating above her. The drunken stumbler coughing on a cigarette. The smoke mingles with frankincense and sage—nag champa and amber. The fragrant blend sticking to her and to the whole audience.

The musicians turn pitch into wine and she drinks it in all along the arpeggio.

Something deep is pulling her downward—swift and alive in the flow.

Running and chasing a riff—oh it’s fast as a feeling—the cool undertow.

The day glo darkly and sparkled—catching trails in her eyes. The sounds casually moving through her—around the coliseum and into her. Higher he strums her desire. The same silver dust falling like luck adorns all. Drum beats rise and fall—they rise again.

Silky satin poets laugh and cry as hearts break and burn and fly into the night—filling like wells—seeping up the groove electric.

Her name is Delia and her name is Jane—whatever scene is conjured—lives up to and surpasses lore. Truth echoes and sweet lies land softly over the diamond flecked melody—leaning far enough—toward a dirty bar chord, then strutting across her blues.

The dancer is the song playing the bass notes and the band keeps time with a spell.

Improvised alleyways anew in the byways building structure familiar and old.

Harmonic pinks pop and ping into focus deep like starlight piercing through years.

We fluently exhale lost languages flawed and understood—answering questions unknown.

Sink in deep currents swiftly bringing the band together again.

We cheer and clap in time.

We’re all here together.

We’re all here alone.

Between being left hanging on air rising—and falling.

Between scales weighing our fates and our dreams continuous all along the arpeggio.

And she dances on—between then and now and with eyebrow raised she says you were there too—sweating—dripping.

The harvest moon wanes and waxes across eons religious.

Fear is on the run—it hides and peeks like children playing tag in late afternoon.

The wild is tame and timid.

She opens and closes.

She dips and lifts for unknowns—lost and found in twilight jazz America.

The Joker’s Favorite Request

He waited with the patience of a prowling cat but he looked more like a bear—standing under the marquee. He had drunk enough to paint his cheeks rose-red and they shimmered in the warm light. Glancing up at Venus under a lean yellow crescent shaped grin—then down at her in the crowd—bouncing here and there, then nowhere.

Music.

He spoke her name to no one.

The stars had aligned—finally.

Flurries of snow were blowing in the night air like cherry blossoms gently finding their way to the wet pavement.

Neon and electric green reflections lay like poems in melted puddles.

Steamy puffs of breath spilling family secrets to smiling strangers.

A yellow taxi hisses softly through the slush beyond the curb with nearby laughter wafting too loudly at a joke already fading into tomorrow. Somewhere down the block a broken guitar is crying through an open window and the whole city is leaning toward its sound.

All the best parts of the concert were still humming in their ears as crowds broke apart—dissolving into memory.

She hadn’t noticed him before. Her eyes had always sought after a more worthy prize, so when she turned around—bumping her head into his chest, she was pleasantly surprised and smiled.

They stood frozen alone together for a long moment.

Snow drifting in time—silently falling in slow spirals. The whole city had arranged itself around them like an old black and white still life perfectly framing—the two of them breathing and sharing cold breaths—rising weaving then disappearing into the dark. He didn’t reach for her hand. He didn’t have to. Some things are known before they occur.

Unafraid of who would speak first.

Afraid of what they might say to each other in trust.

She squeezed him hard and ran away without a word—their chests pounding like Christmas drummers.

Oh sister, what is your name?

Queen of the tide—priestess of the night.

Her pride had returned from the hunt, and he was snared.

Moonlight Getaway Boogie

He took off like the thief who stole the gold—into the commotion of the clambering light.

The rhythm of the city pulsing through the night, he swaggered and swayed as he walked.

His dancing shoes tapping along the blue avenue.

A car horn blows in and out—slow and low like a saxophone.

He stepped over the old news as he drifted along like a man who had somewhere to be and somewhere to go.

Tonight love had won and jazz was right—it was never wrong.

He played along—badly and beautiful.

Careless and free—not bothering to hide.

His eyes screaming wide with the truth of love.

He did the jitter-doo rag—entrée.

Twice then thrice, jolly and gay.

Following—finding his way—around.

Down the tracks an ensemble silhouetted in the fog on a dark backstreet.

The Love Note Café—across the river on the other side of the bridge.

Libretto graffiti is sprayed on the wall and old dancers linger—swaying beneath a burned out stage light—each one a stranger carrying a little loneliness beneath their jacket like a folded photograph. Every wandering soul a forgotten face pretending not to recognize the others.

Somebody whistles the refrain—homeward.

Street sweepers whispered along the empty streets past the Love Note. Its windows gathered the first pale hints of morning. Somewhere upriver a ferry horn moaned through the fog and the city answered back in flickering signs and rattling pipes. The last clumps of snow melting in the gutters and sleepless little kitchen radios glowing beside coffee cups.

He could feel her near him now—as the long night slowly turned to morning. Tasting her name on the tip of his tongue. She was stuck in his head like a song. Some doves flew by—through the pink and yellow sky.

She slowly inhaled and held it—her senses soaking in everything anew.

A thin purple mist was rising from the ground in the early sunlight. Some sparrows were flying around above her, in a game she thought she understood now.

She exhaled and smiled. Spinning slowly around, she reached out her hand.

He was there—leaning back against the wall.

He smiled, opening his arms.

They briskly moved toward each other through the cool air and embraced.

She held herself across his body—breathing him in.

Kissing.

Whispering—stretto finale.