Another year passed
Still not invited to the
New Orleans Jazz Fest
So I did my own
With sparkling performances
Of new material
Never before sung
YouTube-free
My incredible
“Five Planets and a Full-Hunger Moon”
Strumming plaintive chords
On the concert ukulele
Singing between mezzo soprano
And a forced contralto
Doesn’t get any better than this
In between my own work
I sang all our old favorites:
“Jet Plane,” “Blowing in the Wind”
“John Riley,” “The Boxer”
Well, ok, folky but kinda
Jazzy Folk
And then a Talking Blues
My own “Engine Block Hotdogs”
“Joe Hill,” “Rebel Girl”
“City of New Orleans” brought down the house
Thanks, Arlo, for a great song
They begged me for an encore
So I did “Channeling”
The very first song I wrote
Yeah, had my own Jazz Fest
In an air conditioned Florida trailer
Then ate and slept with the audience
My ever-polite dogs
Who says I don’t know how to have fun?
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: My Peace Ukulele