Kenneth Salzmann worked with New Virginia Review in marketing and development. Over the years, he served as a poetry judge for several international competitions, while continuing to create his own work.
His poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals and magazines. Formerly a journalist and arts administrator from Woodstock, New York, he lived in Ajijic, Mexico, for several years until his passing in April 2024.
In memory of this former Lake-side poet, these poems are from his book, The Last Jazz Fan.
The Persistence of Ashes
In fact, it is the roses that remain.
They enter the house all summer long,
and longer. I place them on the mantle beside the urn
where they will expend their pinks and reds petitioning
what gods they know for the persistence of your ashes.
And they will weep petals across the hearth.
At times, I catch myself believing in the immutability
of ashes, as if we are of this place or any other. As if
the generations that go on spreading like ash will turn
one day to the fixed notion of a place that is home.
The roses were planted fifty years ago or more, a neighbor said,
by a woman who went about, as people do, growing flowers
and growing old, until there was nothing left but roses to testify
that she had ever been. And we set out to make a home amid
the thorns and petals of her life. We nested in the oak-lined
rooms that remembered all her moods and all her movements,
but only briefly. And you took it upon yourself to nurture
those roses, perhaps in hopes of sanctifying a transitory
life followed seamlessly by ash and bone.
******
Butterfly Dreams
There’s always the danger,
of course,
of mistaking ornamentation for completion
when piercing soft tissue
with sterling and tiny chips of diamond
which will sway unseen
in perfect time to private rhythms,
or when drawing
inky suggestions of caterpillars
beneath the freckled surface
in hopes of butterflies.
******
Genealogy
in that case
we might as well
create ancestors
of our own
from the glistening
shards of dreams
from flickering
glimpses
of strangers
on the “D” train
as if your story
were handed down
from father to son
then father to son
and then to you
and as if who
and what might
flow from one
generation
to the next
just like blood
might flow
just like false
memory
can turn
into flesh
into bone
into breath
into you
******
The Last Jazz Fan
for David Peirce
The last Jazz fan slipped
from the world one night
like the amorphous
notes of a trumpet solo
at closing time. Some say
reedy melodies hovered
above him like nimbus clouds
at the exact moment rhythm
left the room. Explosive riffs
be-bopped across the sky
when the last jazz fan
returned to stardust,
and clarinets cooled
the darkness. Some say
it is the silent spaces between
that describe the song,
but some say the spaces
might expand until
they swallow the song
and silence is certain.
******
The Stadium
This is no game, remember,
Because the elevated rumbles still
Through the kitchen smells of each
Wave of ever-dark-eyed strangers
Ever cooking up strange dishes
Strangely spiced, and all the while
Slipping strange words
Into the spiced atmosphere
Hovering over 161s Street
To rise above the
Train’s insistent jazz,
To swell into an unequivocal
Roar that will be joined by ghosts
As surely as forgotten ancestors
Will never let us go.
America is dark-eyed, too,
Against all its wishes,
And speaks in tongues,
And can’t subdue
Its hunger for
a common language.
******
Transparency
And when all was done then said,
it wasn’t his flaws that caused
him to disappear.
Often enough he had willed that to be so,
wishing to be as insubstantial as
the bundled absence of all he lacked.
But as things turned out
it was a random strand of virtue
that rendered him invisible.
Ones who should have known better
tugged and teased that thread into prominence,
then magnified it beyond all meaning.
Old friends spoke of strength and courage.
New friends suspected him of gentle grace.
He insisted he stood falsely accused,
Offering his alibi to a myopic mirror
that, upon reflection, denied
any impression of him at all.
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After he retired and moved to Sedona, Arizona, he taught literature at Yavapai College in Clarkdale, Arizona.
He and professional artist Bev Kephart bought a small motor home in 2003, sold most of their possessions, and traveled the U. S. for seven years. After visiting Mexico several times, they settled in the village of Ajijic, joining the ex-pat artist and writing communities.
Mel’s writing has been published online and in print in The United Kingdom, The United States, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. He is the author of three novels, a book of short stories, and several books of poetry. He and his wife now make their home in the village of San Nicholas de Ibarra.
- Poetry Niche – November 2026 - October 31, 2026
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