Jazz Fantasia

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 happytin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.

Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like aracing 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 stairwayand scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling downthe stairs.

Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat pushesup the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the greenlanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rideson the humps of the low river hills . . . go to it,

O jazzmen.