Back Then, Right Now

When you face the preacher, there’s only one thing to say:
Just skeep-beep de bop-bop beep bop bo-dope skeetle-at-de-op-day!

                                                                           Cab Calloway

Back Then 

In the1950s version 

            of yesteryear

                                    beatniks all hepped up 

                                                                        on goofballs 

            snapped their fingers  

                                                in the wee hours 

                                                                                    while 

                                                                                    Cub

                                                                                    Scout

                                                                                    den

                                                                                    mothers

                                                                                    slept.

Secondhand smoke thick as pre-EPA Pittsburg smog.

Dizzy, Bird, Trane, 

            blowing their horns,

                                                Roy, Max, Billie Higgins beating their drums.

But then what? 

                                    The next day, 

                                                                        the unforgiving light,

                                                                                                            and then another day . . . 

Right Now

In the 2020s 

not much linguistic abracadabra, 

but on the other hand, 

I can hook up with Lester Young and Lady Day

on YouTube 

                        and snap my fingers 

                                                            all hepped up on 

my very own 

            garden variety 

                                    brain chemicals in a

             smoke 

                        free

             space.

                        It ain’t all bad – not yet.