another Harlem ghazal/ poem by Zigi Lowenberg

Brass-&-Wood doors shut on their own tonight
Currents cross wood floors in brownstone tonight

Harlem ghosts, friendly Caspers, all that jazz
Tease away that workaday a’moan’ tonight

Mr. Ron’s hurrah invocates to join
his broom-swept stage & share the throne tonight

Wipe office off your shoe, hang on stoop to
greet, slow your keys and mute your phone tonight 

Professor retires and burns to type
in her limestone lit turret, lone tonight

Fifty-years living on this block, wonders 
how, a young Mom became a crone tonight

Between St. Nicks & Convent, our block lost 
four folk — Virus etches grief in stone tonight

Abandoned townhouse, chained wrought iron gate 
blood feud picked one too many bone that night

We brick-lay stories, syncopate on slate
round this corner from subway’s groan tonight

Take time, look — the blessed trees have turned brown
Hawk’s in the air … blowin’ tone poem tonight.

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Zigi Lowenberg is a poet and co-leader of the jazzpoetry ensemble UpSurge! performing in venues from San Francisco to New Orleans to NYC and producing two CDs. A member of the National Writers Union (NWU), her poetry is published in “Healing a Fractured World” (Revolutionary Poets Brigade), “An Embroidery of Voices,” “After the Clouds, the Sun,” rabbit and rose, Writers Resist, Snapdragon, Dissident Voice, and Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology. She has written for the Narrative Paths Journal, the NWU newsletter, and her essay “Support the Edge!” appears in the book Creative Lives. Her current projects include: a hybrid zoom & video series documenting her husband Raymond Nat Turner’s journey as a poet; and her own short videos—visual jazz poems—collaborating with musician friends.(youtube.com/zigilow)

author's photo by Mia Chambers