Poem - "At the Blue Note" by Pablo Medina

At the Blue Note

by Pablo Medina

for Karen Bentivenga

Sometimes in the heat of the snow
you want to cry out

for pleasure or pain like a bell.
And you wind up holding each other,

listening to the in-between
despite the abyss at the edge of the table.

Hell. Mulgrew Miller plays like a big
bad spider, hands on fire, the piano

trembling like crystal,
the taste and smell of a forest under water.

The bartender made us a drink
with butterfly wings and electric wire.

Bitter cold outside, big silence,
a whale growing inside us.

Tags: At the Blue Note, Pablo Medina, Karen Bentivenga, poem, poetry, jazz, music, National Poetry Month, Academy of American Poets