San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

CaLokie
CANTALOUPE ISLAND
 
February 22, 1985
On New York mean streets 
Nouveau homeless mourn Ronald Reagan’s 
“Morning in America”
 
Modal Jazzers 
Congregate at Town Hall for 
Historic concert celebrating the relaunch of 
Blue Note Records
 
Herbie Hancock
Dapper dressed in shark blue suit and tie ascends in 
Funk mode on Steinway stairs to stars dancing over 
Cantaloupe Island
 
Freddy Hubbard 
Double breasted, barrel chested trumpeter 
Puffs post-bop fanfare to the shoreline sorcery of
Cantaloupe Island 
 
Joe Henderson
With salt and pepper bearded lips around tenor sax blows better
Vision to sojourners longing to locate latitude and longitude of
Cantaloupe Island 
 
Ron Carter
Plucks throbbing stings up and down length of 
Double bass in bumb-bumb-bumb-bumb tempo in jazz jaunt to
Cantaloupe Island 
 
Tony Williams
Sweating in blue tee shirt while drumming from heartbeat
of African-Asian-European ancestry, drives us to
Cantaloupe Island
 
Blue Note
Quintet invites all attending 
Reunion concert for endless funkfest at
Cantaloupe Island