The Spoon Player (2/2) By Maurice Fairfield

(1/2), (2/2).

In a museum once I saw A few years further on A Grecian urn in a case of glass From an age long dead and gone A figure playing a lyre stood there On the bank of a rippling stream Where nymphs and shepherdesses danced As if in a distant dream And the face of the antique player Had a strangely familiar cast And it came to me as I studied him Where I had seen him last In a gloomy room in a scruffy pub With a struggling amateur band When he took them over for the gig And gave them a helping hand They woke that night as from a dream With the outcome clear and plain The band had never played like it before And they never played like it again But they never hit rock bottom Where they'd started out before And now and then there'd be a night When they would get it nearly right And play some jazz once more

So who was the man who worked the spell Or was he more than a man Orpheus, Apollo Pan Or a ghost from a time when man began Who sang some notes to fit some words Learned from the songs of birds Who plucked a sinew, made a tune Who made a note by blowing down A hollow reed. Or thumped a handy bone Upon some sounding, hollow wood And mirrored the beating of his heart And decided it was good And was it he who drifted in A thousand ages further on To a dusty pub in a seedy town And listened awhile with a thoughtful frown Then showed them a music truly live When he sprinkled a little magic dust On Blackshaw's Storyville Five.

Copyright ©2006  Maurice Fairfield

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