IMPROVISATION
PICASSO'S TIME #56
(1881-1973)

As we stand
by your shadows
we remember the painting
of a jazz theme
in the "Three Musicians"
gazing on walls
at your ceramics,
sculpture, collages
discovering ourselves
in your strategy
of a smart language
watching for the drippings
from a dynamic brushing
on your thick canvas
commanding,conducting
a magician's wand and shield
as if I were on fir branches
of birdsong resting
over a burdock
of nature's
quick sharp spaces
upon momentous
scales of art
branching out on parts
of gorgeous
contrapuntal notes
we are as passenger guests
with you Pablo Picasso
nesting for a season
upon abstract fields of color
as an prolific critic
awakening from my word plays
of reasoned Socratic dialogue
into an international culture
presaging my own acting parts
from a wardrobe chest
in my responsibility
of sensitive ironic acts
of drama in a closet
staring for hours
as an intelligent adolescent
pouring over
my favorite drawings
creating my own tone
of global consciousness
discovering
on this January day
it is time to honor you
in my own critical passages
at a vital time
after sight reading in a catalog
being also in laughter
at my window's opening
collating my own literature's era
discovering to deposit
my own comic dream worlds
for my major words of theater
in a collective discovering
of my lively continual reading
from a fine arts bench
at a museum catalog
it was always for me
a daily learning experience
hopping out in these galleries
that when we curious children
always sought
to turn off sideways
as the French lecturer
speaks by a podium
at a first light spectrum
from a sunny sanctuary
in a hallway
we stop off as my tutor
and teacher taught me
in my imaginative attention
to review
your lively wonderful drawing
of "The Poet."