Christopher Fried
Mr. Montgomery, Keep Movin'
(Blues Sonnet)
Y'all hear those arpeggios swing high?
I know when sprinting arpeggios swing high,
he's sounding out those trembling licks like sighs.
A Hoosier son and a man with talented hands,
Midwestern son and man with machinist hands,
you broke in your corn with Lionel Hampton's band.
You shook your fist at the jazz purists' complaints
and threw your nonchalance at critics' complaints.
How could they understand what pop tunes paint?
The hard bop sound, though cool, makes a man poor,
that tired bop sound, though funky, makes a man poor,
but those critics never worked sores on old sores.
I guess what y'all hear is a falling chord
letting loose the strokes across the fretboard.
Bio
Christopher Fried was born in 1985 and resides in Williamsburg, VA. He is an alumnus of The College of William and Mary. He recently had his first collection of poetry, All Aboard the Timesphere, published by Kelsay Books.