JOY NEST LEAP©
KNOWLEDGE SLAVES
"you need some milk"
says the refrigerator
"incoming missile"
says the Strategic Air Command
our machines speak with familiar voices
they did not invent themselves
when things go wrong we say
technology did it
so now that we see the problem
how to fix it?
we could destroy the machines
or use them to destroy ourselves
or haven't we had enough of this?
we make them in our image
so finely wrought as to be indistinguishable
we let them make poetry and music
build monuments to dwarf the pyramids
rock cradles
fill them
lull us to sleep
and they have owners
who will own us
accidentally or not
as they rule the image
which began with us, the grunts who were there in the beginning
who grunt today, but with far less pay
than in the glory days
when information would set us free because it was
but now it's in the machines which use it
for magical, maniacal purposes
set in motion by rational profit seekers
technology is a shibboleth
set up to serve the owners who themselves
are fascinated by the fiction
as the great unwashed whale
swims slowly toward oblivion
shredding tail fins in the net
at The Brass Rail with ramen-fed programmers
who translate higher math into zeros and ones
to feed the biggest machines
for the least dollar
until creativity isn't worth a cent
Silicone Valley
Highway 101
lined with Chinese servants
once again who
read the roadside billboard's brilliant colors
the communes are dead
BREATH OF LIFE
Rosie at the front porch door
meows for attention
but not to be let in
in the dark evening light she has caught a bird
it struggles
I do not offer congratulations for her self realization
I leave them
triumph and fear on the lost horizon
have vanished
freedom is a vagabond
homeless
without precedent
all habitable spaces have been vacated
glory and sadness float by on temporary rafts
the procession is an ordinary day
nothing different
birds fly
thoughts are the blue sky
only to become mountains again
uncalled for
JUST INTONATION
when experimenting with chords
in my way
forgetting theories
how easily one note shifts the mood
time honored formalities elide avant-garde discoveries
Bach, Bruebeck, Beethoven, Brecker
horn lines and symphonic subtleties
brash statements lose their sting
the mind in exploration is itself examined
Cannonball Parker is Winton Monk
Mingus on C-rations
Bach, for all his mastery
is barking up the wrong tree
there is no new scale
just new limitations
all the notes that ever were or weren't or will be
are right here
unique
which is the illusion
wait my turn
listen
wait
try the impossible
the improbable
an accident may occur
how fortunate but do not pose
as the composer
take courage, take the gift and play with it
as it has played with me
why not have fun
pick the wild strawberry
that picked me
BLISSED
this beautiful spring-like-summer-fall
averages to an unseasonable breeze
clear humid air is healthy
clearing the way for some fairly unreasonable work
the day lily in the front yard was doomed
way too big
and last night's sleep . . . in the cool air
was sound
building strength for the rebound
with a steel pry bar
the unfortunate plant
which ended on its side with a three-foot crown
roots upended
sucking air
an ill wind, indeed
how qualified is the canceled page
that would have recorded a dancing bear
had that been relevant
or a flooded subway
in a weather event
gathering evening's shroud
expressway sirens, shrieking military jets
the simple sound of a neighbor's door
perhaps closing
and graffiti sleeps
trees in shadow, hulking mute, silent dreams, chartreuse lichen clinging to posts that never imagined a steel guitar skeening yesternothings, porch light tiles gloomed in depths of green
and art on its own terms
garish, huge, outrageous
brooks no comparison
with the silence of the frogs
