Monday, February 13th
passings
Al Jarreau (aka Alwin Lopez Jarreau), March 12, 1940-February 12, 2017, singer
“Take Five” (P. Desmond), live (TV performance), Germany, 1976
(Taking a break—back in a while.)
Listen to it the way everybody
here was naughty today,
of how broad it is.Foreign man with an affluent cigar,
he used to live on top of this bed
on the local rails he was so proud of
among the recyclables, this morning,
spouting words that I thought were other.
Yes, and they became addictive. Oh,make me a boy again! Do something!
But the little candle just stood there,
reflected in its lozenge-shaped mirror.
Maybe that was “something,”
a lithe sentence.He’s only going to do it for the first time.
It’s snowing hard.Hand me the orange.
—John Ashbery (1927-), “Just So You’ll Know,” New Yorker, 2/13 & 20/17
