Piano Rain

Cut-crystal 16th notes
scamper and dangle
drop

splink

twinkly-plink

splank

spangle

mingle and dance
in a pool of window panes

disentangle

fingers wrangle piano lingo
from a hip Little Dipper
tickle ivory dimples
that dive and make ripples
in the Tiffanypizzazzangle
cascade
which
is
Jazz……..

Catalysis*

We reach
out through
all our differences
to touch
the tender parts
where we are the same.

Though each of us
would be pierced
by love rather then
accept its vulnerable
responsibility,
we must take care
to avoid stepping on it
with the hasty,
heavy boots of our defenses.

Through our solos
we learn to read
each other’s
music
and only then can say
the softest things
in unexpected places.

* catalysis — modification, and especially increase, in the rate of chemical reaction induced by material unchanged chemically at the end of the reaction.

 

Key Change

Light classical
parfum d’
Debussy pink&white
cherryapple snow
in May
merely hints at heady
Big Mama Thornton
Lilac Blues
in June.

 

Your Bass

(for Walter Booker)

Bookie back.
Bookie forth.
Sway with her.

Dance
with your body pressed
against her neck
and mahogany breast
like the curve
of a fine horse’s neck –
a bloodbay mare.
Your arms
ride ’round her
not gently, but
pluck the right places
’til she sighs
and answers “Yes”.
Your face is
squinted
in exquisite concentration
on her mellow moans.

 

Afternoon of a Fawn

(for Glenn Cashman)

Glenn’s tenor
set the mood, a sophisticated
sunny early afternoon
in 1954. His breathy reed
blew a dewy mist under a rainbow
over the Frank Lloyd Wright house
built into the side of the hill.
Sunlit notes scatting and skittering
in and out dappled leaves
of a birch canopy
over the staircase
of sharp and flat stones
became a dappled fawn dancing,
darting side-to-side
down them, bouncing
into the doe
picking her way
ever so sedately
through the liquid golden
aftertune.