Playing and Talking. Eating and drinking.

Diz never tired. Chicago.
Ten long blocks in a snowstorm session. Apartment
nearby home at Dewey Square.

Downtown incidental play private or writing arrangements. His neck
inflates balloon.

All of which is no matter. No physical. That’s just the way he played.

—

Sometimes Parker became the idea of a trumpet.

Playing less unison section Parker set on translating it to modern for club, work, eventual band, and nobody.

Outside Milton’s and in, everyone mattered. Played the street. Made records guys would go on the music and, from there, some savage pretend.

They did it all wrong. Right? And fall Jericho the old after discerning the walls!

There were Two Distinct Things

Bird anything he played, what was he doing?

Dizzy responsible. A pattern that smart? What he’s doing is going forward.

Bird late. I’ll go home a changing person.

Dizzy peer and age miles. Names and Name and Names and Art

Bird luck and a Valentine. What’s he doing?

Dizzy art, the drummer solos and Pop

Bird unfortunate and general

Dizzy efforts the music

Bird general

Dizzy balances between the sections a changing person

Bird reduced like life or

Dizzy life like excitement but still decidedly lo-fi.

—

These poems are excerpted from Warren C. Longmire’s chapbook BIRD/DIZ, which will be published on November 15, 2022 by Bunny Presse.

Warren C. Longmire is a poet, technologist and an educator from the bad part of North Philadelphia. He is a former co-editor of Apiary Magazine, a board member for Blue Stoop and has taught at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He’s been published in journals including Prolit, American Poetry Review and The Painted Bride Quarterly and is featured in the Best American Poetry 2021 anthology. His first full length publication, Open Source, was released in 2021 through Radiator Press.