Jazz Fantasia by Carl Sandburg

Jazz Fantasia by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

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 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 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.