Solo Boogie

The 4am freight pumps
a walking bass line through the winter woods
as the roof outside the window
thrums with rain.

The dark gets busy with owl hoot
and furnace fart while
tormented monkey mind
has a picnic in the morning storm.

From way off over the Coast Range
a thunder arrives, tired, and drops
its wet luggage, to coax a chord
from the downstairs piano.

I’d invite you to leave me, wakeful boogie,
but for too much of leaving of late.









A carpenter, Ted Jean writes, paints, plays tennis with lovely Amy Lee. His work appears in Beloit Poetry Journal, DIAGRAM, Juked, Pear Noir, Gargoyle, Magma (UK), and dozens of other publications. He lives in Milwaukie, Oregon.

See Ted Jean's painting The View from Heartbreak.