LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT

In college, he elected jazz
as a language,
dropped French so he could learn
that chops meant
playing the sax like Paul Desmond,
creating a sound
resembling a golden hue
that only the angels
might duplicate,
carried so high
it might be heaven,
though he could sense
Desmond's fingers
moving with elegance,
ballroom dancing on the keys.
He later learned
that Desmond played
in various modes.
They were not clubs
or bars he could frequent,
though the modes
were most often located in bars.
He found out
that Mel Torme had pipes,
beyond a collection of meerschaum,
an ability to sing songs
and scat like no one heard before
without ever leaving the stage.
Could say he also had chops,
but with singers it was different
because with one set of pipes
he created a timbre all by himself,
a degree of contrast as varied
as timber in the forest.


Mike Keshigian's poems have appeared in Sahara, Bellowing Ark, ByLine Magazine, Fairfield Review, Red River Review, Sierra Nevada College Review and numerous other online and written journals. He has had three chapbooks published and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. He is a musician and educator, performing and teaching on the collegiate level in the Boston area.