Getting On The 'A' Train Poem by gershon hepner

Getting On The 'A' Train



Like getting on the “A” train
is writing a new quatrain,
the Sugar Hill not Harlem,
but magne line as in Charlem,
who chose a throne in Aachen
to live. Men used to hearken
to him, and all the jazz
of Ellington, pizzazz
I cannot match in ten
brief lines, like both these men.

Inspired by a segment of “History Detectives” shown on PBS on September 7, analyzing the metal plates of the song “Take the ‘A’ Train, ” which Billy Strayhorn composed for Duke Ellington (real names Edward Kennedy, like the Senator who died on August 26,2009!) . The program inspired my poem “Fear of Hoping to Get More” and this poem. The song “The ‘A’ Train, ” written by Bill Strayhorn, became the Duke’s signature tune, and there is a wonderful YouTube of it on http: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=LbGMyBiNLmM.

9/8/09

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