Once Again From The Top

 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 hued melody can mean to clarify

in only one sense.

Illustration: the scale 

of a man’s shape on stage

colors what he seems

 to our ears.

Say he notes the moon

as a whole

and 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,

as certain scales of uncertain roots)

air moving past any harm 

of the Harmon into harmony

with a thing whose valves 

might open & close all night

or brush a heart

with a grief of Autumn Leaves

from a key breeze of cursive notes

more assumed than it seems?

Couldn’t he hide

in these cobalt bursts all night?

But what cratered moon 

wouldn’t long to phrase its clarity

as a “Definition of Blue” 

beyond any phase

he leaves

on the stage?