Jazz

Jazz

Michael Yost

Smooth and liberal,
It mounts and valleys down, percussive,
Tempoed to itself, accustomed nowhere.

In pulsing figural
It floats; a summer gown, successive
Patterns born and dying in the show-wear

Donned by limbs as loose
As birdsong larking through the growling
Traffic down by ninety-five; the silence

Short, the sound profuse
As flesh in Rubens, pain in howling,
Or leisure in a world convulsed by violence.

---

Michael Yost
Poet & Writer

Michael is a poet and essayist living in rural New Hampshire with his wife and children. He earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His essays and poems have been published in places like First Things, Modern Age, and the University Bookman. These can be read at poetryofmichaelyost.com and at his substack, The Weight of Form..

Photography by Mohit Kumar