Spoonful: A Gathering of Stone Soup Poets

An extension of Cambridge's Stone Soup Poetry Venue.

Luis Lázaro Tijerina




  Photo by Su Red 

 
Lady Day, When the Night Is Cold
 (To Billie Holiday)

Lady Day, when the night is cold,
your voice on the vinyl record moves in time
with the movement of the stars--
stars so sad in the cold night, yet so alive.
In the constellation of the galaxy,
your life was lived a little too fast…
your affairs ended a little too fast …
you sang the middle of the night,
to make right with your songs
what is wrong in all our lives…
              
Lady in Satin, at the end of the day,
where you “walked a little too fast”
and you “talked a little too much,”
still echoes in the sadness of the trumpets,
whose soft notes fall, like the
gentle strokes of a lover’s hand
on your beautiful face.
Tell me, who in this time will ever
take your place?

“The night is cold and I’m so alone,
I’d give my soul just to call you my own”…
You sang those words under distant stars and
a silent moon.   
Now you are among the stars and moon,
that sad blue moon
still shining down on our jazz-filled nights
where in the thralls of the melodies,
none of us stands alone…