swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

circular paths
Steve Swell

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fine lines

competitive nature and Buddha nature
are fine lines
only of value
when noticed while crossing them
and understanding why

Caution, voyager

Bridge the Bristol
      River
Blue
With Bebop,
      and Jersey City
      and too much
           time on your
           hands to
           now this is not
           right and that
           might be worse
           but never knowing
           the lesser of
           two evils equals
The hot, Biblical Hell
of alternating spaces of
someone else’s making
Forgetting the business
of here.

Circular Paths

Circular paths,
     the call of the unseen revealing its mysteries in the
     ancient rituals of curiosity and discovery
     to discover what’s in the cracks, to keep digging until
     a dream emerges and breathes on its own
Hiking through the Amazon, the uninhibited inquisitiveness
     pushing the brush aside
     as playful apparitions come to tease me
Rattlesnakes make their way through my tympanic canal
     suggesting an underground route
Where dancing is preferred over words
Industrial size fans blow through enormous empty spaces,
     decorating the walls with chameleons and brutal bug
     eye views that are distorted into the freshest of air
     that is suitable for drinking, acknowledging all
     aspects of living

There’s an ancient-future that reveals itself constantly
here. A modernity that grows and blooms from the rich soil
of the recent, flowering into the next, to assure the winning
of a hard scrabble evolution into humanness…………

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Trombonist, composer, educator, poet Steve Swell has been an active member of the NYC music community since 1975. He has over 50 CDs as a leader or co-leader. He has toured and recorded with diverse jazz personalities from Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich to “outsiders” Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor. He runs workshops around the world and is a teaching artist in the NYC public school system focusing on special needs children. Swell’s poetry has appeared in Metropolitan Review SUNY, Acoustic Levitation, and in the anthology of poems by musicians, Silent Solos. You can hear Swell reading his work on  “Songs from the Poetry Box.”