Jazz as a Way of Life
The landscape riffs on what works where,
Scrub brush dirt, scrub brush dirt, bougainvillea
Pamplemousse-style on sandstone
Declining to absorb
The blues and grays.
It's radio day at Hillside Elementary
And the sea is tuning
Its seriocomic static into a new life,
A true light
That comes in a little box
In quantities of two or four. The salesman
Resists the urge to alliterate. He's picked up
The idea that it makes him sound illiterate.
He thanks his lucky day record
He has the San Diego territory,
The percentage of lounges
He hasn't embodied the spirit of error in here
Is still high. He's not high. The principal
Is singing along with the hundred and one
Strings, and the sea is staring
Disconsolately at the closed-up little clubs
That dot the roadside cliffs. That dot.
That sweet and precious dot.
– Jordan Davis
from The Nation, October 1, 2007
