Three Poems – Jared Duran

Black and White Night Of the Soul
for Chet Baker

Three notes take flight and drift 
out the window, down to the street 
below. In Amsterdam, far from mother, 
children—one of whom looks 
like you might have if only, 
under different circumstances, 
would that you had it to do all over 
again. Your absence of eyes 
belies the sole truth—every outcome is the same. 
When there is no satisfied, 
when you are perpetually almost blue, 
all is addiction: women, cars, jazz.

There is the high and then, 
there is the next, or 
there are three notes crushed 
under the tires and feet of Amsterdam.