Shirley Horn

Somehow I imagine

her with sixties boots;

she would’ve worn them to show

a kind of freedom.

It wasn’t just jazz.

She wasn’t just silk either.

In a land of prayers for rain

all lined up and sun bleached,

Ms. Horn sang sweet showers

like De Kooning full-of-color.

Hear it

in her songs, cinnamon

with horn, still

the beautiful night, still

a sea perfumed.

Poet, composer of music (Max Able / Abel, Rawls & Hayes) and spoken-word performer (Scapeweavel), L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has had hundreds of his poems published in the U.S., Europe and Asia. His chapbook, Peach Box and Verge, has been published by Little Poem Press (2003). Twenty of his poems are featured, along with an interview, in a recent print issue of erbacce (UK). Abel’s full volume of poetry, Jonesing For Byzantium, is published at UK Authors Press (London, 2006). His new chapbook, The Heat of Blooming, is forthcoming from Pudding House Press later this year.