Wednesday, June 8, 2016

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.

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