ISSUE 36
August 2007

Tad Richards

 

Tad Richards's chapbook, Take Five: Poems in 5/4 Time, is forthcoming from Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press (New Haven, Connecticut), publisher of his two earlier collections, My Night With the Language Thieves (1999) and Situations (2002), which is currently being serialized on the Italian website, Fieralingue. He was the most prolific contributor of critical bios to the recent Greeenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry.
With Miles    


Trane would start a solo
an hour later
  still
  be playing
Miles said
    why so long
Trane said
    that was how long it took


Herbie told Miles
    I don't know what to play no more
Miles said
    don't play nothing

Herbie sat with
  his
    hands in
      his lap
        the
whole number
  up for
    one
      sound
back to the lap

Miles said
    that sound was a bitch


Mtume wanted Miles

    like a martial arts master
    who splits an apple
    on a guy's throat
    without touching the throat

to play a whole concert
just below the
threshold of sound

Don't knock free
what it finds

 

 

Tad Richards: Poetry
Copyright ©2007 The Cortland Review Issue 36The Cortland Review