Starship Tahiti: Poems

Strange Fruit on Bourbon Street

57 Strange Fruit on Bourbon Street Dexter Gordon wipes his face with a paisley handkerchief before “Don’t Explain.” Sinuous grooves, smoke rising from mouths, cables to heaven. Sometimes beauty is too much & the changing structure of the song overwhelms us, opening riffs of loss that will never end but repeat, a refrain of the mind’s slur. Dexter’s “Strange Fruit”: black men hanging from magnolias, an afternoon in New Orleans. Balcony chatter before dinner, slanted light on flesh toned walls. I started listening to jazz during the era of wet dreams, “Nights in Tunisia,” the pleasure of rewinding the tape. Which we never can. Father took me to see “Tightrope” starring Clint Eastwood as an undercover cop. I was scared, kept seeing men in theater darkness undressed to what I wanted, taste of rock salt & Georgian clay. Father would kill me. Clint drinks & gambles off duty, now he slips a garrote around a Cajun’s neck & pulls tight, embracing him from behind in a stiff dance. Operate among shadows he seems to say, this city is permissive, learn from it. There is shouting on Bourbon Street, but I can’t tell whether it’s a riot or a party. ...