We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

      name your price

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND


I didn’t know the words or if there were words.
Miles Davis’ 1954 version being the first I heard,
just a kid living in New England woods
at the end of the 20th century, with jazz as exotic
and adventurous as Mongolia, Tangier, or Everest.

I stocked shelves at the grocery store and walked
a two-lane night highway to get home,
while the perfect timing of song metronomed
its way into my teenage loneliness
smack-dab in knee-high winter.

Horace Silver rolled arpeggios,
clouds drifted across a white moon.
Art Blakey brush-tapped cymbals,
wind-whoosh through leafless oaks.
Davis’ three-note phrases,
the few and far in-between streetlights.

Once I found a dead raccoon, side of the road
and because of a guardrail and steep embankment sliding
into marsh, the semis rumbling and blaring,
I had no choice but to step over its mouth
twist-frozen in agony, its one forearm raised

as if requesting my hand, and for weeks
the melody of its body unraveled
until it became an unrecognizable tune.
Were there kits waiting for its return
or were no creatures sleepless without it?
All these years I’ve carried that life.

I don’t know the words of if there are words
to this kinship I’ve composed,
but know its haunting key
and like Miles’ trumpet solo
I hum it note for note
when I need company.

credits

from All This Living: Selected Recorded Poems, released February 26, 2023
John Michaels: Guitar

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Joshua Michael Stewart image

Joshua Michael Stewart Massachusetts

Joshua Michael Stewart is a poet and musician living in Western Massachusetts.

contact / help

Contact Joshua Michael Stewart

Streaming and
Download help

Report this track or account

If you like Joshua Michael Stewart, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring interviews with LA music scene pillar Kamasi Washington, and new London-based duo Mrcy.

listen now