The Lovely Autumn Moonlight Makes Me Feel Like a Jazz Queen From 1926
My attic of vintage dresses inspires me!
I am a Blues Jazz Queen, with an October moon in cool yellow,
I am a Jazz Blues Queen, standing in tree branches of misty embroidery.
Bessie Smith, I want to wear dresses like yours!
I walked into the Emporium of Jazz,
Mendota, Minnesota- a meeting point of rivers.
I draped myself in opulent Victrola gowns of crackling Jazz.
Oh, I feel like
the "Empress of the Blues" in blue water fabrics of smoke.
I wear beads, tassels, furbelows, and beaded silks
swimming in Erté loveliness.
I will wear a headgear of ostrich plumes,
egret feathers,
and pearled ropes of starlight.
It was suddenly 1926!
Everything was Columbia regality!
Everything was record label Okeh!
The lovely band began to play.
Hot Jazz notes drifting through the exotic mists of time,
piano interludes, tuba umps, clarinet bleets, trombone moans,
trumpet blasts, banjo twings, guitar twangs,
rickety washboards scratching in antique time.
Hot Jazz caressing the beaded filligree of my beautiful gown.
I am watching a lovely autumn moon rise
over Mendota, Minnesota.
The lovely autumn moonlight makes me feel like a Jazz Queen
from 1926!
Pétrena Marlena Lommen