Conformity

It’s not a different drum

to which I march. It’s

an inimitable trumpet

instead. There’s actually

no parading involved.

You’ll assume I’m talking Davis—

miles of midnight blue.

Or maybe Louis Armstrong—

the asphalt of his voice.

Gillespie makes me dizzy—

the spin of his crooked horn.

The bend within the tunnel—

where light has gone to die.

Symmetry has no place to

hang its head. You will be &

I will bop.

There’s Arturo & his Latin Train,

the scorch of señoritas.

More ahhhs than Ipanema.

I crumple in the heat.

I will need a place to cool.

Hang with Wyn Marsalis.

I’m the only one allowed

to call him that—for poets have

their privilege. We’ll talk of

cats and shades—

not of sunglass

but the umber under trees.

How everything is lovely when

it’s cloaked. Where a Manx regains

his tail in lower C. How we’ve

got it downside-up—

lost in the blowing out.

It’s the inhaling that’s Divine.

Unleashing its enigmas to the air;

too gloried to be entrusted to

percussion. The reticence of the   

space    

between its beats.

Andreas Gripp

August 31, 2026

photograph: Kali9 / iStock