POEM: "Nica & Monk"

Nica & Monk

Enormous house, servants for everything

curtains drawn to protect the paintings

a Rothschild, she dreams at needlework

denied what you’d really call a schooling

gets married, has children, waits a moment

flees to New York City, she’s falling for jazz

and Thelonius Monk (who’s got problems)

Nica is very rich (that you can’t deny)

she’s heard of a thing money cannot buy

smokey music in the basement clubs

bass notes and the thunder of Charlie Parker

then that hesitant, hopeless, hopeful piano

‘round midnight when the crowd thins

when connoisseurs of the soul sit still

and a dirty draw of perfect sound

permits the long drawn out breath of bliss

Nica, Nica, Nica, Pannonica, a butterfly

like Cho-Cho-San, casting off her own angels

another subject of the foreign winds of love

a rich white lady faces prison for a black man

you read it and you say it over and over again

try and imagine this power any way you can

at Monk’s funeral she sits next to his wife

and all who come pay homage to them both.

© 2012 Rob Schackne