New Orleans Drinking Whiskey Neat

that which halts itself

                                                                                             dreams.

~ Lorca, “Running” (“Corriente”)

A sonnet lends a pause.  It brings a halt

To Tuesday stuff.  It enters into spheres

As real as dreams.  If life is filled with fault,

The lines kill off with fixing salt the sneers.

I like to think the inspiration is

Akin to what a jazz musician feels

As clarinet, brushed snare drum, rhythms, whizz

To new horizons and the music peels

Away to smokiness.  A Bourbon Street

Escape defeats a Tuesday rush to work

Forgotten in the combo of the beat

And throatiness of saxophone, its shirk.

  The point of sonnet and of jazz, the same,

    Is fug opposed to all that isn’t shame.

~ Phillip Whidden