Stan Getz Is Gone

Danny O'KeefeHP, Poetry

Was he a good man?
Was it a good life?
I don’t know, I can’t say
We’re all surgeons under the knife
When we look at ourselves in an honest way

Stan Getz is gone
I know I’ll feel this way again
When Miles, too, passes on
Voices driven through a horn
Reflections of the lyric soul
That linger in the place we loved
Before we all were born

Take my tears and sail away
From this ocean in my heart
Into a heaven of memory
The sacred folds of art
They are a simple gift, but true
Oh, Brother, you are not alone
Out there where you”ve always been
In that special zone

That something that you always had
Is with you now
That soft grace and tone
Like all of space
So vast, beyond our ken
But, somehow, round
You spoke to improve the silence
With the beauty of your sound

I feel the softness of your voice
Riffs like waves lapping
On a Great Lake shore
I have no choice
I listen now
The way I heard before

We must release the line
Like the comic in the light
From which he cannot run
On the stage that is a raft
At the end of Mickey One

© 2001 Bicameral Songs