What I was trying to do all along.

THE 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 desire darkened? And what clarinet longing might prey more in this shrine to Apophenia—this casino where I wager only by probability, yet still gamble on my ability to win the crimson lips or anthracite eyes of a dark-skinned Uncertainty Principle who brushes my arm as she dips to serve me dissolved spirits? Not only water moves in waves. Is it the Vagus Nerve which makes the octaves of chocolate in her skin appear the same as a wager on gospel harmony in the music hall of Mahalia’s mouth? Do a Wave Function’s imaginary units mark the superposition of hearts or does no door except endorphins open our hunger to dervish numbers? Are Persian doors & Arabic digits licorice 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 still hear why a choir means to gather, but not why what it means to hymn seems equal parts discordance and harmony. Because how then to divine the difference between the arc where the unstroked fur of Schrödinger’s cat is black as Roland Kirk’s clarinet and the arc where your knees remain red from kneeling to recite her ninety-nine 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.