Kevin Rabas
Knocking Out Walls with Chet Baker
for Artt Frank
Days, we knocked out walls
that summer. Nights,
we played clubs.
You were good
with the hammer,
steady, sure.
You bent from the brick
and swung. I knew you
would break through,
would find your way
into a woman’s heart.
You hefted your horn, held it
first like a hammer,
then like a child.
You knew just how
to swing one note
into another, how to
breathe into metal,
make it warm.
Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019) Kevin Rabas teaches at Emporia State University, where he leads the poetry and playwriting tracks and chairs the Department of English, Modern Languages and Journalism. He has eleven books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner; All That Jazz and Everyone Just Wants to Drum. Rabas’s plays have been produced across Kansas and in North Carolina and San Diego, and his work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize six times. He is the recipient of the Emporia State President’s Award for Research and Creativity and is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry, the Victor Contoski Poetry Award, the Jerome Johanning Playwriting Award and the Salina New Voice Award.