|
THE
JAZZ ANGELS
inspired by Gitana
Dancing
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
They came with the painted faces
of time,
and a need
for purpose and motion;
-wanting to fill in the gaps.
Like Angels,
with jazz on their minds.
|
|
|
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
The pictures, silent,
but never mute,
speaking, sometimes;
- I can almost hear them singing!
They are not without motion
never totally at rest,
striving for life
like hunters in the night.
They are sledgehammers for walls
the horns of Jericho,
they are religion, faith, ritual and need;
Icons from the Holy City,
the rebuke at the gate
where the damned one's go.
They are Silesia, Kiew,
the field and the forest
and all in-between,
the lone mountain-top,
where everything is right.
|
Cover of
Lee Fuhler's
new Poetry Book:
"The Jazz Angels"
Lee
Fuhler's homepage
top of page
|
|
Home
Coming Song
inspired by Gitana
Dancing
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
Sad-eyed lady from the open plains
painting the beauty denied you
by stone-eagles.
Give us your jazz angels,
entwined in song and tears.
The interior, stark and drunk on colour.
The haunting past gathers like storm-clouds,
to meet the demand of her muse.
You sang one night to Brandenburg
with the anger of the night
and the words of your time;
You sang until the walls fell down.
There is a woman walking in the old city tonight,
she steps through the gate
and disappears,
inside the ancient walls;-
that they might somehow understand.
Everywhere she looks is stone.
The blue-green fields will welcome her return one day.
|
|
|
Freedom
Yearning Song
inspired by Two
Parrots above the Piano
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
An eagle cannot soar above the skyline of this city
My heart cannot be tamed for places such as these
... and I am stuck like a shipwreck here in the dust
stuck like a shipwreck;
I am the rust which gathers the rain
An eagle cannot rise to meet the skyline...
we wait and pray for colour,
the music of rain and for a song
Raindrops play their notes upon the roof-top.
The rust gathers and turns into colour:
Two parrots rise above the piano...
|
|
|
Her
Gitano
inspired by Gitano
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
We could have, had I known you then
we could have danced like all of Spain
like a pair of damaged angels
drinking the wine from the soul of Granada
sang Spain the whole night long
while quoting Federico...
I called you
I called you name
I called you Spain
I called your name 'Gitano'
|
|
|
Justice
Angel
inspired by Maat
Waiting for Justice
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
She gives her perfect skin for the days
to age
and still she comes shining.
She deserts the night and arms herself with Justice
in an exchange with bitterness.
She comes
as if gliding
slaying the days of the time in which they lived.
She still remembers them
She will not forget their names.
I know why she comes
And for who she is searching.
I know her name
and what she wants.
Yet I can never explain her.
|
|
|
Living
Song
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
I called for an eastern sun for my directionless
night.
A vast blue sky, so hollow, to fill with my wanting.
I wanted the village at dawn to install with the passion of
light.
I want more than prayer, something more real
to kill this aching.
Drive a stake made of colour into the heart
of each dull grey morning.
When you come
bring a soul for the night to caress,
in exchange for one man who is cracked
but not broken.
Bring your ordinary passion
your colour of storm
and allow me to claim
this aching is no longer mine.
It has been killed.
Bring
something which is visible, still not tangible,
where reality and beauty struggle and entwine
in the climate of creation
a music of colour.
Fill the dance with living.
And bring one more song for the dead.
|
|
|
Song
in a Different Style
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
When I came, I was searching,
for water
the hiding place of the sun.
I came with this bold gaping hunger.
I came to the place where I found her.
Where my expectation and hope
collect and collide
in all the old disappointment.
With a false blue sky
my fraudulent sunshine
awaiting the chance proposal,
in the grey orange light
of the morning without favour.
I built a fire for whoever came
for the forest and the night,
and danced as if I'd been forsaken,
- and with a different kind of music!
Ravaged and immaculate still
in the torn orange-grey light
eclipsing time and sorrow.
I came as usual from the impossible position.
Abandoning the hillsides
I waited on the shoreline
where the wind and rain collide.
I am not dulled and never not defeated in some way.
Clutching hope like a banner raised for one more lonely sky.
I danced for the kindness of the colour,
- and to a different kind of music
which she gave me.
She has ... a certain kind of style.
|
|
|
In
my heart
inspired by Locked
in Souls and Tangled Up
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
A bird flutters in a cage,
flowers grow among the weeds
planted by memory
and thorns are the pain from an unkempt past.
In my heart are stolen nights
special skies,
it is raining.
There is a line of barbed-wire
surrounding the days
and she comes with flowers
and the scent of her friendship
to release them.
There is a wind for a unclaimed guitar,
a song with no singer
waiting to be sung.
There is a single name;
it is Hers.
In my heart
there is certain to be bruising.
Cries from the battleground;
too many years spent at 'the front'.
A solitary candle burning for the nights
stamped with her name.
In my heart are the songs of the old ones,
the voice of the ages
still yet to be heard.
In my heart,
there are many rooms,
some, still un-occupied...
|
|
|
Sintezza
inspired by Gitana
at the Beach of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mèr
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
I hope whereever you go
the sun shines without failure
and it turns the hillsides golden
Vines shimmer topaz-gree
in the early morning-dew.
I hope the climate is a kind one
whereever you go...
And the Gypsies still gather
and dance in the square like aravaged angels...
yet their colours are not ever dulled.
Whereever you go
I hope the nights are cool and gentle
and they come on easy.
And the moon's full and high,
like a huge apricot.
|
|
|
Still
Listening - 'Porraimos'
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
The stones still stand with quiet rage
and the men wait by their horses on the roadside.
They travel the roads of their fathers;
the same roads upon which they fell,
so long ago now...
and still they wait for word.
the Gypsies
by the roadside with their horses,
they eye the fields for answers
the place their brothers lie
beneath the flowers.
|
|
|
Sintengro
Dukh - The Sinto's Lament. No. 3
Song from the Forest.
|
lyrics may be quoted if author's
mentioned
|
|
In the forest I can hear them, I am listening...
in the wind in the trees I hear their song;
the song of the old ones.
They are calling to me,
the birds sing along with them,
our old songs
songs of our freedom.
They know these songs of our time.
Here, I am alone,
in this land that is not my home.
Come for me... or let me return
to the place of my ancestors.
So that I can sing with them!
Gili fon u wesch
( Sintitikes, Romanes version)
An u wesch schunap len, me hom shunaua...
an u balwahl an e rukha schunau lengri gili;
i gili fon e phurengi.
Jon hin kharena le ap mande,
e tschirikle giwen le mit lensa,
mari phurengi gija
gija pren mare fraiepen.
Jon dschinen kaia gija fon u tsiro.
Kai, hom man kokerres,
an kawa them kai ga hi mange khere.
Wel pasch mande... man darfte te dschau palpale
te u than fon mire phurenge.
Kai giwaua man mit lensa!
|
|
