East Side Swing

Moonrise in the sunny blue;
Evidence playing from
across the room.
I stand on the fire escape,
whistling the tune to
a bird on the power line
to show it a chord change.
It turns to face me,
exchanges a phrase of its own,
and hops around again,
completing its rotation;
then dives toward the street,
punctuating the traffic
with its animated notation.

 

Above this Below

The lid to the stainless steel
sauce pan, bottom up
on the counter top,
vibrates to the drum solo
in Monk's Blues Five Spot
playing through the stereo.
The snare crescendos
lock me into place,
as the metal in me
gravitates toward
the metal of Thee.

 

The 89th Key and So On

Played Twice appears three times
(including two bonus tracks)
on Five by Monk by Five.
Recorded eleven and twelve days
before I was born, today
it provides the soundtrack
to my own session
with words. To accomplish
a poetry of stride, I conjure
the band playing live.
They inform my rhythm and diction
and incite my ambition
for brilliant corners. As Rouse
swings through his solo, Monk
stops comping, leaves the piano,
and starts dancing. And so do I.

Living Song

The wind chimes' bonelike notes
become a skeletal song
according to the measure
of my listening, the timing of
my attention. The tune
is strikingly original,
which is to say that the wind's
original. I anticipate the tempo
and harmonize the breaks.
Then my phrasing drifts,
and the song slips into stray notes,
bird chatter, a passing car, no measure,
free form, a new tune, and so on,
before a skeletal theme concludes
the session, the way the reprise of
Epistrophy would close a Monk set.