Shoot it Jimmy

Our orchestra
is the cat’s nuts –

Banjo jazz
with a nickelplated

amplifier to
soothe

the savage beast –
Get the rhythm

That sheet stuff
‘s a lot of cheese

Man
gimme the key

and lemme loose –
I make ‘em crazy

with my harmonies –
Shoot it Jimmy

Nobody
Nobody else
but me –
They can’t copy it.

William Carlos Williams: from Spring and All, 1923

*Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
~Mark Strand, “Eating Poetry,” Reasons for Moving, 1968