Another day, another version

 

SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL

a DJ Reneg8d remix for LaSon C. White 1961-2007

 

April sprouts around us,
is the sky as sullen there? 

Why was the hour 

after we talked cruelest, most raw? 

In less than a month, 

some oncologist claims
breeding cells will overwhelm you.
Lilacs still bloom here as there, 

just outside my screened doors. 

Hints of all the Prince songs 

we’ve shared.
The purple petals somehow
dead certain to flurry down,
land and soften our walkways.

April’s sibilant drizzle
is a ride cymbal mimicking
the rhythm of memories,
cruelest at dusk. 

What other month 

would dream of breeding, 

then watering these lilacs 

recent as bruises?
Out of the patter
of a thin rain's fingers,
the Alto vibrato of a voice
dead on key, 

conjures “Adore”,
lands on these ears.

April winds wane,
is that my ringtone amid
the evening news? 

No, it’s on vibrate.
Cruelest would be 

the quiet following the call.
Month after month 

bent on breeding a grief 

fragrant as these lilacs 

we both adore. 

But right now,
out on the horizon, 

this purple dirge
of a setting sun 

may present the only chance 

to be dead silent 

and feel your voice again 

in the land of the living.

Another Idea

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

Not as if

your fingers 

cause a rise or fall

in the pitch of a note

to become a query 

or seek to caress 

or pinch a fret 

until certain sounds

begin to unpeel 

from two citrus bodies—

say a blood or

navel orange—

or also not 

as if a sound 

like a body of water  

rippling below 

a duvet of darkness

or a lilt of the beloved

in the leaps of a ghazal

lifting to question why

any blossom—

blood orange

or navel—might need 

to guide or guard 

the borders of intonation 

while other flowers 

seem to dream 

of crossing it with what

—when you toss 

your hair that way—

almost flickers 

like abandon,

but tonight perhaps

as if beyond 

the normal scales

—while orange petals

lick the air 

above a wick—

could lie a troubled clef

which even as it knows 

it shouldn’t

might denote 

a wisp of smoke

or appear to curl

into a silk scarf of sigh—

now pianissimo—

which could try

to warn a length—

suddenly bare—of neck

of what could lie 

beneath certain muscles 

which may or may not 

mimic a blood or 

navel orange’s

quiet tremble—

as if only until dawn,

as if only until taken

or mistaken for 

something which—

in this low light—

could rise or fall 

like a lip of chrysanthemum

on a ridge of collarbone.

A little song

 YET NEARLY ON MY KNEES

O thing that in the cemetery sings, why

Did your eye often circle a Cuban cigar 

Which flared in the hand of a man from Hartford?

The cemetery as almost a veil of peace,

But your deadly tale at most a flair of violins.

It seems a tail that apophanies pieces

Of things which certain eyes may have lost.

A bird sings, and what tale doesn’t veer off ?

As the cigar burns, the epiphany feels urned.

And any cemetery could be a vale of curtained eyes

As a key of this scale involves a curtain of fire.

O peacock that in the cemetery sings, is it Jazz

When your cry loves or leaves circles of something 

Which whitens the cigars of men into ash?