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Billie's Threnody

Member since 2002 · Posted 19 Jul 2002 · 5 comments

Dusty throated saxophone Black lady singin' blues Too long. Artist, artiste, mahler, painter Planer, strainer, cleaner, make it leaner Fleecer, teaser, describer, imbiber Polecat alley animal With a gleam in your eye Show me the sky Make it bluer each time. Lost her charm, her spark A park with no meadowlark The heart of the ocean old Not as in age But, story told Or book Whose many pages Have been lurked through By the dark.

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mean 4.89 weighted 4.94 rank 8987 views 215 View voting details →

9 votes so far. Yours would make 10.9 votes so far

5 comments

[2] dilips_10 20-Jul-02/3:23 AM Reply

doesnt has the soul

[5] kawakurdi 20-Jul-02/8:13 AM Reply

good spin.

[6] Bachus 29-Aug-02/7:51 PM Reply

here frass shows us once again his amazing ability to hone it down...to...yes..yes...to sculpt..i'm awed...

[7] Christof 12-Sep-02/3:46 AM Reply

I like the last few lines of this but your attempt to suggestively evoke Lady Day through your list of epithets (especially 'mahler' - I don't know this word except as the name of the composer, is that what you mean by it? Please tell!) doesn't really work for me - reductive (esp. imbiber) rather than descriptive or empathetic.

[8] Yardbird 6-Nov-02/6:59 AM Reply

Pretty darn good! I really like the idea of "dusty throated saxophone" - tell me, young sir, do you ever listen to the great tenor saxist Lester Young, 'cos he was close to Lady Day (hell, he came up with that moniker!), appeared on some of her finest cuts, and it just so happens his fabulous tenor sound was the dustiest and warmest sound going (or was that a deliberate point you were making?) Good work, sir - you have style (said he, shuffling off to his record collection with a glass of malt whiskey...)!!