12 jazz haiku

12 jazz haiku

By Van G. Garrett

we sing funk jazz groove

we very seldom play blues

our duet is cool

too cool miles davis

in astronomical shades

hunches in green gel

dizzy i need help

i love great jazz but can’t find

fare for tunisia

roach was my favorite

drummer with soloing hands

rudimenting beats

jazzy jezebels

wear funk on their lips and blues

inside their red thighs

chicken blues and beer

a saturday night special

sickly spewed sunday

bless the child whose got

a song a soul a something

worth crying about

supreme j. coltrane

saxophoning in the dark

her head on my chest

rhythm chugs and chinks

guitar strings sing harmonies

of life before death

bird in the front yard

pecking on his battered horn

trying to be sane

half and quarter notes

eights sixteenth thirty-seconds

scaling the worn paper

louisiana

bluegrass blues jazz zydeco

cafes dives streets swamps juke

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Van G. Garrett, a writer, photographer, and teacher from Houston, TX can best be described as a “contemporary courier of creativity.” Garrett, a 1999 graduate of Houston Baptist University, has a BA in English (with an emphasis in creative writing) and Mass Media (with an emphasis in print) which he has utilized as demonstrated by his various publications and honors.

He was awarded the Danny Lee Lawrence prize for poetry in 1999, a 2002 Callaloo Creative Writing Fellowship for poetry, and his poems have appeared in Rolling Out, Life Imitating Art, Swirl, Drumvoices Review, Curbside Review, Shanks’ Mare, Urban Beat, E! Scene and elsewhere. His photography has appeared in Source, has been contracted by Capitol Records, and has been on display at the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston. v.g.garrett@usa.net

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update 8 July 2008