Charles van Heck's Woodhull Journal

In the oblique stagelight moon,
He, closing his weary raven eyes,
Lips puckered, lifts his trumpet.
On a breath, deep from his lungs,
A burst, a single improvised note,
Rises, from the arteries of his soul,
Free to the bell’s silver flair height,
He teases melodic notes with rhythmic complexity,
A fluttering, a dense chord progression 
Arrhythmic split tone, cross-rhythm phrases,
Daring liberties with an Afro-Cuban pulse or beat
Trailing in vapor riffs,
Tears of a Black Christ weeping,
Grief, wounds, and scar tissue,
That receives neither balm nor bandage,
Braiding forgotten names engraved on
The symmetry of white marble headstones
Organized in neat flowering rows,
Of neck-noosed martyrs, Birmingham’s children,
And the recently executed martyrs
Who sang, “Let freedom ring…,”
Their bones lying scattered at your feet,
Their memories etched in a cascade of chords
Falling in the moonlit mist.
The trumpeter, with his furrowed brow,
Melodically seeping blood from his velvet licks,
Nail blades, cutting
Into your clenched fist, America.

_________________________________
In Memory of those murdered during the Civil Rights Era, 
Renee Nicole Good, and for Marimar Martinez, others who have been injured and arrested by ICE, and those who died due to police and mob violence. 

Jazz Notes © 2026 Charles van Heck

Photograph: Stefanella96 on Pexels