Final version?

A CRY OF IMPROVISATION AS AN ALGORITHM OF THE BLUES

Although this 

ain’t the ballad 

of a wounded boy,

tonight a needle 

descends into 

a record’s black skin—

the beak of a dove 

winging into a window—

until we hear

in the alto horn

extra stress 

in his moan of “Testimony.”

But listen—no matter 

how high the moon—

could even Charlie Parker

chart the true burdens of birds

into “Ornithology”?

Even if in other takes

Yardbird stays—

and doesn’t leave

his wife & infant son

as autumn 

litters a lawn,

could the eyes

of a chirping bird

ever urge

the square pegs 

of his arpeggios

into a cobalt whole?

Let’s be clear—

blues ain‘t nothing 

he loves or nothing 

that ever loved him,

just some jive frequencies

of water, or sky, or 

a type of bandanna

tied across his brow. 

But if nothing aqua

tinted his lungs

could a moaned “No”

ever twist his breath

into epistemology?

Joy claims birdsong proves

the futility of words

since what human could improve

its contrafactual flow?

Some nights 

even the moon appears

to take notes 

as Parker breaks a fractal

off their phrase—

then flattens & sharpens

one eighth into a swollen vein.

This paradox feels hypodermic,

a beaked flame of bird-speak

beneath a spoon’s burned skin,

but let’s say the song ain’t over.

I don’t know why

some cats try to pull

from Parker’s tone 

as much wit as Witness,

while some want the warp 

& woof of the Blues 

to make a square bandanna

for flagging down the yellow taxis 

of hip axioms.

But I do know

how many claim

“Bird lives”

in this address 

of ghost notes

unexpected as ketchup 

on corn flakes.

Of course imagination 

can flare into a faith

so even the hands

of an abandoned boy 

could be seen waving

outside the window 

while Bird mines a horn’s 

phonographic memory—

which cannot choose 

what it does or doesn’t save.

“Take a phrase, 

then fracture it”—

he might recipher

his solo to say 

until even the ballad

of a wounded dove

seems to resolve 

into ontology—

but does that free

two slender hands

to bend the band 

into a bandage?