AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION WITH THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE—Take X
towards a freer jazz with ashes buried under some trees by a ¿dead? cat in a different key
not knowing
if a light note later
the hidden position
of a thorn section
might tincture
our skin to remember
the annihilation
of a beloved’s touch
which theory nears
but can’t quite name—
say we shrug—
and enter what
are not shrubs
but feel nearly full
of the edges of petals
which yield or shield fruit
that could perhaps function
as chromatic points
tho not the pentatonics
of The Black Raspberries
as we lapse
into a longing
to risk crimson pinches
or for a time imply
a conjugation of tidal
desire dug by Kearney
from a Pointillist poem
of a pond which aims
to tailor the hems
of address by Cécile
or Cecil pleating
fabrics of jazz
we felt from “Le Front Cache”
like a kiss on our collarbone
or even the knees
of a more natural man
or island woman, yet
kept modeling—
a performance edging
beyond the syntax
of wavy phrases
or Harriet mulling
the velocity of velvet
deities which Apophenia—
our mellow diva—
might bray or splay
into how bananas
it could be
if yellow berries
or genetic diagrams
framed walls around
what cannot be named
and also feel like
a trio of Winter Leaves
shading or abrading
our parakeet feelings
to color what appears
to change—or even changes
to appear as we seek
the brush of a tongue
in our berried desire
for a green silence
bladed nearly to the edge
of a sound science?
AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION
WITH A MAN CARRYING A THING
(for Roy Hargrove)
Any blue melody can mean to atone
in only one sense.
Illustration: the scale
of a man’s shape on stage
can attune what he seems
to our ears.
Say he notes the moon
as a whole.
Say he tongues his muted horn
like a missing tooth
as if seeking
a single valve as key.
Say in moonlight the scales of tuna
seem a silvery blues.
Should we then resist the sense
one feels him weave
in the yellow & blue tales
of the tune as need be
(muted notes almost perceived
as written melodies,
a certain scale of uncertain roots)
air moving past any harm
in the Harmon towards harmony
with a thing whose valves
might open & close all night
or brush a heart
like the ghost of Autumn Leaves
on a key breeze of cursive notes
now less tuned than assumed?
Should he hide
in these cobalt assaults all night?
But what cratered moon
doesn’t shift its own resistance
to a “Definition of Blue”
beyond any phase
he leaves
on the stage . . .
