The Descending Scale of Billie Holliday

Enlarge poem

“Good morning heartache” “She thought you said goodbye last night”
There’s so much story in her voice….
Saw the literature In Her Pain Stuck In The Back Of Her Throat,
Cough Me a Song That Sings the Truth,
Breathe from her diaphragm opium rasp that floats on Ivory keys,
See her words of vivid past
Scaling bass sounds over trumpet defiling her open,
Exposing musical notes raw and uncensored
Screaming the rape of innocence,
The Devil buys souls through open legs,
She escaped in grooves on brothel’s phonograph,
Sang along with Bessie and Louis,
God Bless this child with Jazz in her vein,
Give her vocals heavenly sounds to lullaby the hell…
To unlock secrets with keys only to be brazenly sung accapella,
Sleep with one eye open, dream half of a nightmare,
Eleanora in the back of her eyelid,
Billie dilated in her pupil,
The Dove flew off into the distance,
Holliday in the saliva of her tongue
That’s how Billie became…
Chose to sing her days of abandonment with the only attachment left of her father,
His name…
Lady Day sings those blues, vibrant yellows and red,
Her color’s primary purpose is to create
Improvising like wind blowing,
She sways as melody kisses your lips,
She sings as they sway like clothing drying in the wind,
Strange fruit grow like weeds these days,
Strange taste, bitter to swallow on untamed tongue,
You can hear it in Billie’s riff,
Her lover,
Kept her in check like trench coats in Harlem night clubs as if opium won’t get her high….
He slapped her into higher octaves,
Fisted music notes in her skin,
Duets of hit & miss,
Off pitch out of tone scats,
See her face sings “Am I Blue”
Her lover with an unapologetic “That’s Why the Lady Is Tramp” look,
Gestures and runs his hands across body like fingers running scale,
Keys, bass, horn, drum bedsprings tell the truth
On how sex never quite gets rid of the bruises in all that jazz,
There’s pain…insanely, strangely beautiful this caged bird sings
Poppy flowers to sleep in an arm’s reach,
Her arms reach for the microphone,
Either way….
Some would say she’s arm reach from heaven’s gate,
Her first kiss…. progressive over bass chords
Heroin takes off the edge,
That harsh melody of vocal chords linger like cigar smoke,
Or could it be the slow rasp in her breath from the phone cord around neck?
Could she distinguish these ooh’s, ahs and moans?
Whether it’s from Jazz, sex or fist?
Just couldn’t resist the high…light, center stage,
The headliner reads…….
She loved jazz like she loved her men…
They abused her like she abused the smack…. that smacked her harder than any lover can,
“Nobody’s Business What I Do” She would sing from her diaphragm
“Good Morning heartache thought I said goodbye last night” but here you are,
Stuck in the back of her throat breaking the core of her heart,
The rasp of her last breath descending in scale,
Crackling, in syncopated tone,
Harmonizing to life’s blues