The Cotton Club By Clarence Major

The Cotton Club




Look at Duke!
He stays up and up.

Stays up in the music.
Up where the music reaches.

Up through the waves of the music.
His waves slicked back.

Duke's staying up all night
so long that time stays up with him.

But you can see the afternoon
in his eyes. Yellow sunlight going down.

And he sleeps late. Slow at home.
Remembering Jungle Nights.

Sailing on the wide wings
of a Blue Bird, sailing light.

And somebody's always saying
Hold it, Duke,

I wanna take your picture,
and they can't even see him.














this poem, originally published in a chapbook of the same name, 1972, reappeared in the collection Configurations: New & Selected Poems 1958-1998 (Copper Canyon Press)