Watching John Coltrane Receive a Haircut Before a Concert in London, 1961
- Watching John Coltrane Receive a Haircut Before a Concert in London, 1961
—after Mahmoud Darwish
No love, I love the ancientlove poem that guardsthe sick moon from smoke—
a white towel knottedbehind the neck protectsa man's chest from the pock
of shorn locks. In a worldwhere horses fall overthe sides of poems and die,
angels wait in the bell of a hornto commit suicide. Blessedbe the love a ukulele has
for a father's dead hands. [End Page 150]
Roger Reeves (poexeries@yahoo.com) received his BA from Morehouse College and an MA in English from Texas A&M University. His awards include a 2008 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, a Bread Loaf Work-Study Scholarship, two Cave Canem fellowships, and an Alberta H. Walker Scholarship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, American Literary Review, Indiana Review, and Gulf Coast Best New Poets 2009. He is currently an MFA candidate at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas.
