JAZZ FACE

There's not just one, it depends on the style,
the performer and his instrument.
Like the one that's the favorite
of trumpet players, you know,
the one with the crumpled face
and the pained look of focus
just before he blasts high C.
Every note in the upper range
becomes a new source of agony.
Then there's the face
of philosophical perplexity,
the one used by trombone players
when they reach higher than they should,
eyebrows lifted against the hairline,
chin extended and tucked into the throat,
usually during a technical lick in numerous positions.
Of course, there are the sax players
and their ballads, eyelids nearly closed,
head in a languorous droop
that sometimes lolls back
and swivels side to side
to help kick in an arousing vibrato.
And then the drummer
with his classic wild man look,
crazy faced with the fixed grin
and scary stare, like he's about
to lurch off his seat, unlike
the piano player, the aristocrat
with his proud, confident posture,
convinced that for the next few hours
he and his ensemble own your soul,
how he notices you've immersed yourself
in the excitement and emotion of the music,
with your intense squint and locked grin,
that empathetic grimace
especially obvious when your head bobs feverishly
in a contagious yet effusive sign of approval.

***

MORNING TREK

He rarely has those nights
when he can sleep
deep beneath the comforter
and curl himself back into childhood
in the twin bed next to his brother,
a life he can barely remember.
His parents have long departed
for that permanent slumber
in a room with no view,
touching hands forever
as they once did in the confines of privacy,
now distant and deaf to the whimper
of nightmares that occasionally
still startle him awake and make him restless
in the milk white light of dawn.
The trembling rays of sun
split the pines on a cool summer morn
then splinter his shaded bedroom
and on the days when calm abandons him,
he rises to walk.
It soothes him to see the giant pines
still asleep in their bark,
the dreamless vegetation, unscarred
by human steps, swaying in the early breeze
as the huge ball of fire ignites
the watery horizon with flames
that abruptly shatter the darkness
about the sleeping lake homes.
The loons have ceased lamenting.
Silently, he thanks the crystal spirit of summer
for the soothing yellow gift of morning.
Soon houses blink their shades open,
a motor roars across the lake and in the distance
a chimney raises its smoky arms skyward.
The forest absorbs night as light walks
the mulch paths toward day.
He turns homeward, listening to his own footsteps.

***

Michael Keshigian is a performing musician and collegiate music educator in Boston. His poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and online journals. To date, has had 5 chapbooks of poetry published and is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. His latest book, Warm Summer Memories will be published this summer by Maverick Duck Press. His most recent publications include Mannequin Envy, Ibbetson Street, Fairfield Review, Red River Review, and Sierra Nevada College Review.