What I was maybe trying to do all along.

A CRY OF IMPROVISATION AS A PULSE OF COMPULSIVE PRAYER

(¿Voy buscando una muerte de luz que me consuma?)

What’s the difference between chocolate and any other darkened desire? And which dark longing preys more in this shrine to Apophenia—the casino where I divine a rationale to wager by probability and not seem addicted, yet still long for any proof of the crimson lips, anthracite eyes or static charge of a dark-skinned Incompleteness Theorem who brushes my arm when she dips to serve me dissolved spirits? Not only water moves in waves. Is it my Vagus Nerve making the octaves of chocolate in her skin taste the same as a wager on gospel harmony in the music hall of my mouth? Does the wave function have imaginary units to mark the superposition of hearts or does no door except endorphins open my hunger to dervish numbers? Are Persian doors & Arabic digits mascara black or lipstick red? Do we discover these differences or invent them? If you’ve never placed a wager and lost it all, you might get why a choir means to gather, but still not hear why what it means to hymn can be more dissolution than harmony. Because what’s the difference between the part of the arc where Schrödinger’s cat appears licorice black as a clarinet strung around Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s neck and the part where I kneel to recite one woman’s 99 names as a rosary?

Ceasefire Now!

 

Another Revision

 AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION IN E SHARP

(after Romare Bearden)

picture a man 

curling one arm 

around a neck, 

before leaning 

the spine

of an upright back

or fretting 

with one finger 

as another finds 

the G string.

Pick your base note

to hover

like a question mark 

or a ruby-throated

hummingbird 

before flitting 

on or off.

Picture a vase of notes 

budding into snowy roses

or grace notes

flowering burgundy 

across the chiffon dress 

of a woman 

whose obsidian hair 

he glimpses

through a white lace 

which worries the air.

From the bandstand, 

the spotlight may

illuminate her face

or a snifter of cognac

until it's amber

and resonating 

as a secret 

middle name.

Even then

he wouldn’t know

if she’s replaced

the only theme 

of his body

of work.

Or if later this night

she might step shiny 

from the shower, 

her hair up

in a towel

her slight smile 

curving now

into a lower clef.

Picture a few fingers 

embracing the piano keys 

of his ribs.

Who wouldn’t

sip this scene

like two fingers

of cabernet?

Pick one arm 

to curl around a neck 

before leaning

the spine 

of that upright back,

or picture one finger 

on a nipple,

and another on a navel

—to quiver or quaver

a washboard belly 

until someone hums 

“Softly as a Morning Sunrise” 

into the eager air.

Welp!

 AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION TAKEN FROM A PAGE IN APOPHENIA’S DIARY

maybe the one where 

she needs to write 

softly of or on 

some body

until a violet 

or inviolate 

portion of said body 

approaches the border 

of a musical phrase 

the way atone 

might approach

the border 

of intonation.

Because of course I did

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION AS ADAGIO FOR VIOLIN AND VIOLA
(for Hilary Hahn)

Not unlike the way 

two fingers might 

glide down a neck

seeking to elicit a pitch—

a held breath of prayer

may also seek to merge 

two citrus bodies—

say a blood or

navel orange—

within the silence

of a still life.

And yet not 

a long island sound

connecting these bodies 

of water under

a duvet of darkness

and not signed waves 

from carnation red lips

troubling the leaps 

of a ghazal into the sea

of a secret which

—when you toss 

your hair that way—

ripples towards

what in lesser light

could be called

—for now—

liquid abandon.

But maybe

merge as fingers

on taut strings—

while orange petals

trouble the air 

above the wisp

of a wick—

as our two

curving bodies

seek the onset

of a note

—or anything 

hand drawn—

that might

curl us closer 

to a Trouble Clef

where our silkening

could peel into one 

long scarf of sigh—

almost pianissimo 

as freshly cut violets—

or perhaps intend

to stray beneath 

a bare strip of thigh

now rippling

with the blood 

or navel orange’s

silent ache—

only until dawn—

only until two petals 

of chrysanthemum 

try to rise or fall

or dissolve in a brush 

of red incarnate

on a stretch of open neck.

Poem

 

Haiku matters.

 Special shout out to Murphy Writing of Stockton University, the Noyes Arts Garage, The Mighty Writers and Raymond Patterson for the chance to lead this writing workshop. https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/local/education/black-art-matters-atlantic-city-program/article_c8d90ef4-6e06-11ee-8922-339e6420ff65.html

New and revised haiku & senryu

 Brookland cookout

Newport in one hand

half smoke in the other

July sunlight

waving cornfield

cicada song

goose prints

across deep snow

noon prayer

Indian appaloosa

how pomegranate cedes

to elderberry

the cardboard box

but not the old woman

asleep atop it

outside the bank

the woman’s yoga mat

is cardboard 

morning fog

opening the curtains

to a gray blanket