My Fingers Refuse to Sleep

by Bill Minor

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about

I felt a poem I wrote, "My Fingers Refuse to Sleep" (published in the Chicago literary journal "december") had definite lyric (song) possibilities, so I set it to original music, and that version, as sung by Jaqui Hope, is on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqjmDeiz2s). Heath Proskin (bass) and I (piano) then recorded this audio instrumental version.

lyrics

MY FINGERS REFUSE TO SLEEP

Like a blind man, they
want to curl up with that
good book, the Braille
of your body—all night long.

Like a choir of monks
they would sing your loveliness,
your complete loveliness (every-
thing about you)—all night long.

I envy my fingers, am truly
jealous of them (jealous as I’ve
discovered I am), and ask them
to tell me all about you,

to recite your name, your
taste and scent and touch
now that I am without you—-
all night long.

credits

released February 20, 2017
Bill Minor: composer, piano; Heath Proskin, acoustic bass

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about

Bill Minor Monterey, California

Bill has published three books on music (most recently Jazz Journeys to Japan: The Heart Within).
Commissioned to write a spoken word suite (Love Letters of Lynchburg)--also set his own poems to original music for two other CDs: For Women Missing or Dead and Mortality Suite.
Available on YouTube: "Kindness: A Song for Betty” and "Mandelstam and Minor" (translation of a poem by Osip Mandelstam). ... more

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