Friday, September 26, 2025

You Feel Me?

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION WITH THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLETake X

bluesy notions of a freer jazz with ashes buried under some trees by a ¿bob? cat in a different key


These are amazing:

I quietly shrug and enter

what are not shrubs

but a bramble of edged petals

that scratch and itch 

with the promise of 

bluish fruit which could perhaps 

—beloved—be

chromatic points 

but not a pentatonics

as in The Blackberries

singing of an ache

one might lapse

into and risk crimson.

I am still.

I am still seeking

not knowing

if a light blue note later

the hidden position 

of a thorn section

could pierce the i 

or for a time mitigate 

with a pound or

a hug once dug 

by Kearney from a pond 

in a Pointillist poem 

deep tidal desires 

which beg tailoring

by Cécile or Mackey 

or Cecil asking about

fruit & thorn being 

both elegy & ode 

to what they signify

as we try to caress

Le Front Cache

or even the knees 

of a more natural man

or Haitian woman.

Assume our souls

are a handy myth

—is our speech 

a mere performance

beyond the velocity

of lossy phrases—

to model or yodel emotions

or evoke Harryette mulling

over a syntax of velvet

deities that Apophenia—

our supposedly fun diva—

mimics to bray or splay

as wounds on walls 

around Gardens of Truth

but not as velour

as the most crimson cry?

I am still.

I am still quieting

which I can’t explain

but does this approach

the mouth feel of a trio 

Moten leaves

to shade or abrade

my parakeet feathers 

—to color such loss

or what feels lost to elegy 

unless I begin to dig 

my berried desire

with a silence bladed 

nearly to the point 

of a sound science?

Friday, September 19, 2025

Another revision

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION 

AS A SEASCAPE WITH VESSEL

(for Cesaria Evora)

“She sang beyond the genius of the sea.”

 

I love how

what impresses

more than your swollen footprints

in the Saõ Vicente sand

is your ghost verses

appearing to ignite

a light from the tallest mast

and how your voice

rising or falling, becomes

a salty island breeze swirling

around the man-made reef 

of rusted hull which 

resembles my dreams.

Your genius—half mountain mist,

half cliff of crashing wave—

is somehow a migrating sun.

Cesaria, is that why 

the aria in your name

carries the whistle of 

those like me who—

with a star’s glint 

in one eye and a squint 

in the other—

track speckled fins 

of whale song?

Since even gliding gulls

fear a plunge,

I also often fear 

tumbling down

your ballad’s seaside cliff

as you measure

your sodade. She left me

only this record—

how do I balance 

on my head

the simple truth 

of how often the sea 

and the song of salt are

in the same skeleton 

key—which darkens

and enlightens

what one finds

inside your every word

by driftwood

word?

 

Cizé, I miss 

how the brown 

liquor of your voice

—dark voice of the sea—

now bottled 

on heaven’s higher shelf 

carried more Marlboro blaze 

than Coast Guard’s 

finger of searchlight.

Perhaps the barnacled hull

of my skull will never 

comprehend how

your contralto illuminated 

our dunes with so many waves 

of lunar light.

A constant cry

of yours—though

I don’t understand

its Kriolu signs—

becomes a medley

of whale spout

rising in Atlantic moonlight.

She left me 

only this record—

a mirror of my flaring vices

flaming as the sea

under your solar voice?

Since falling tears also 

reflect celestial shine, 

are the traces I still taste

drops of your faith 

on the cheeks of Sodade?

Tonight I watch 

Mindelo don

her ebony negligee 

and knot a sequined

scarf of stars 

around her head 

before mulling

in her Atlantic mirror 

what tariff of tide

you must’ve paid

for slipping

off your shoes

to pace a place

I still aim to go—

where the sea

of your song

rises beyond

every word

by barefoot

word.