Meet FRANK DE CARIA of the Ben Lomond Chapter

Frank De Caria grew up a city boy in Ogden, Utah, living on Ogden Avenue and attending Ogden High School.  Seeing an opportunity, he took a creative writing class his senior year instead of regular English where learning to diagram sentences and doing endless grammar exercises did not appeal to him.  Thus began his love of writing, publishing his first poem in the high school literary magazine.  He attended Weber State and Utah State, winning poetry awards and publishing in college magazines. Attending college on a music scholarship, he graduated with a degree in English and Art.  After meeting Clarence Socwell at the Bookateria he began attending Blue Quill writers group and Ben Lomond Poets.  He won the UTSPS book award in 1981 on his third try with his book, Song Within the Sounds.  He is now a retired public school teacher and technical writer and is currently a freelance writer/photographer. He serves in UTSPS as our Laureate Book Sales chairman.

Soul-Splash of Jazz

By Frank M. DeCaria

Taking the stage in the easy caramel hours

of this forever twilight room,

a symbiotic jazz quartet begins to improvise

and reinvent the turning wheels of sound:

Slightly to the back, in semidarkness,

two expert hands thump and stutter

wooden sticks across drum and cymbals,

heart-beating the living air.

On the left side, prancing beside each other,

two handfuls of fingers measure and re-measure

never-wasted clusters of piano keys,

finding perfect cords and blue notes.

To the right, two more roving hands

caress and fondle the long thin neck

and perfect flat belly of a deep-voiced

woman-shaped string bass.

           And there in front, hard pressed lips

and the gentle fingertips of two more hands

make love to a soprano saxophone,

until it coos and moans out perfect melodies.

On and on, song by song, jazz men

and their diverse instruments

swirl harmonies into the vibrating air and ears

of dancers and non-dancers alike,

until a sleepy long-held finale of blue notes

drips slowly down the early morning walls,

offering everyone at every table

one last elongated soul-splash of jazz.