Poems about Ray Charles and Benny Goodman from Ed Galing

RAY CHARLES

his long fingers
on the keyboards
were pure magic
you could see his
fingers move
and listen to the
sound of blues,
his voice, shaking
from side to side,
his smile a part of
the music, there was
no one as good as
ray charles,
a black man who was blind
but not his music
he knew the soul of music
and it was poetry
he could play a song on
your heartstrings and make
you cry
music was his main love
but it wasn't only blues
for he could play the song
"america' like you never heard it before
then
"he girl with the diamond ring, oh,oh,uh, uh"
we repeated his words,
so humble in his presence
i would listen and join in
with my tiny little harmonica,
trying to blend myself into his song
but of course ray
never knew this,
i could never play the blues
as he did, but oh, how i wished
i could...


Benny

those days when we
were between wars
when music made us all
feel good
as we young teenagers
jumped to the music of
benny goodman, and his
licorice stick,
benny, with the large
smile, and wearing glasses,
looked like our grandfather
but oh how he could play
that stick
we would rope off the street
back in 1934
and would turn the radio on
and dance
we turned and whirled
we dipped
we danced close
we made do
with what we had
we were young
and we loved young
and benny's fast
hot jazz
filled our dreams,
for benny knew how to make us
hop and laugh
those trilling
tripping notes
from the clarinet
strings of pearls
dance, dance, dance
oh how we danced:
"bei meir bistdu schoen"
a jewish melody
about how lovely your girl was
and benny turned into a
modern jump
times were good
even when they were bad
the war was a way off
but for now
this was good.