Jazz Hangs on a Saturday

Posted bySynnika Chizoba LoftonPosted incommunity, mailbox weekly, PoemsTags:, , , ,

Avoiding noise,
like vibes consume
skin. Constantly.

Fixing flats on
polluted earth,
patching

up holes on
liberated wings.
Snatch up

purpose and
memorize the
cracks in culture.

Jazz hangs
on flesh. John
Coltrane. Dexter 

Gordon. Mr. 
Thelonious
Monk taps

keys, altering 
moods. Rick
laughs at an

episode of
Malcolm and
Eddie, while

Ryan unfolds
a box of Kane’s
fried chicken,

hoping to uproot
mystique, justify
the snake-like

backups on the
Parkway. I lean
into risk,

crafting a path,
a routine to resist
America’s wild

jaws, opening
and closing, like
some metallic

beast’s mouth,
feeding on flesh
and bones.

I interpret Marx.
I hum against
emerging

dusk. Robert
Glasper breaks
the silence with

coded melodies.
Them frequencies
tickle the sky’s

cloudy belly.
George Floyd’s
face on concrete

births Black fists,
crooked smiles,
and revolution.

Images that
greet us each
and every day.

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Published by Synnika Chizoba Lofton

"Synnika Alek-Chizoba Lofton is an award winning poet, the president and CEO of Guerrilla Ignition LLC, host of a Nationally Syndicated radio show, and an educator, teaching literature at Chesapeake Bay Academy and English courses at Norfolk State University. Lofton has recorded more than one hundred and fifty CDs, albums, CD-singles, and mixtapes of poetry, including his highly praised debut, The New Breed. He is the author of twelve books and the founder of Riot Speech, a musical genre combining performance poetry with traditional musical forms, such as Rock, Jazz, and Hip Hop. His poems have been published in Experience Reality Magazine, Quay: A Journal of the Arts, UpStreet: A Literary Magazine, and, in 2014, Lofton has been featured in Blind Sided Magazine. He is a regular on Virginian television programs such as The Hampton Roads Show and Chesapeake’s Thinking Out Loud on WCTV. He teaches World Literature, British Literature, and Composition, while touring the country, performing at literary festivals, musical festivals, poetry readings, open mics, concerts, high schools, and colleges."

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