Jazz Fantasia

 by Carl Sandburg
Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
Sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans,
Let your trombones ooze,
And go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops,
Moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible,
Cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop,
Bang-bang! you jazzmen,
Bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans-
Make two people fight on the top of a stairway
And scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff ...
Now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river
With a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo ...
And the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars ...
A red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills ...
Go to it, O jazzmen.