IMPOVISATION #281
HOWARD NEMEROV'S DAY
1920-1991 Feb.29

The memorial stones
are viewed in words
under the sky
near Elm trees once
filled with snow
make way for branches
with a chorus of sparrows
curled with narrow bird nests
yet in their still life shadow
was Howard Nemerov
who looks through
the slushy water
through photos on your birthday
taken for us by your daughter
Dianne Arbus
the famous photographer
who rests with a bard's lover
overwhelmed by nature.

IMPROVISATION# 280
REPETITION

We go though cycles
in the masked curious sun
as the snow is now
only marginal and thin
over this marathon run
just a curiosity of flakes
like our thought pattern
in an unfastened memory
here in upper Manhattan
with its mad fury of wind
as a storm passes away
from the Coast
on the last day
of February
days leap by in March
others ready to put
on ashes for all have sinned
and leaves fall as in a canopy
from Elm trees
in nature's natural pauses
taking off on my bicycle
with a fallen arch
after a marathon run
near the island's ocean
hearing a chorus of birds
sing for us
where we play riffs of jazz
over the sand in spring
and are overwhelmed.

IMPROVISATION#279
NOT KNOWING

Not knowing who will
reveal this poet's
fragments of words
or who will sense
the lichen from branches
in these forest woods
or in their neighborhoods
by a hushed dusk
of the passing sunlit hour
on the last of February day
or who will walk with me
by the ocean's home harbor
where spring will renew
itself under covers of pine
and awake us by the foliage
sowing more seedlings
from a gardener-laborer
rebirth at planting
here amid the breeze
from the edge off the shore
along native phlox
by the Evergreen,
trees and plots of shrubs
along the living vine
I'm sitting over by the rocks
of the Hub scene
of a home harbor
waiting this afternoon
for my anchored kayak
to be ready soon
peeking out into the cool air
after a cabin fever
from wintry cocoon
then jamming
to be paid
by a country club
relaxing by
playing jazz riffs
to a new sax tune.

IMPROVISATION#278
ICE FISHING

Ice fishing
with an Inuit friend
it is cold on the boat
which floats sideways
he sings to us
a Barbara Streisand song
she once sang
in the Brooklyn bakery
from a vulnerable adolescence
that we all recognize
the wind turns us around
wishing for shelter by noon
from the storm passing over us.

IMPROVISATION#277
SPEAKING OF WAR
(Wilfred Owen 1893-1918)

Speaking of war
seven eyes close
on the cemetery
showing deference
in defense of peace
when all victims
are resigned
to the memorial stones
next to holes
to be stationary
and lined up just to survive
for the next body bag
dug into bogs of bones,
there are even
St. George swords
of politicians
and urns under the arms
of those who will not learn
to hear the machine gun blast
away at the last soul alive
and a meeting of the press
editorial board
and a cross to bless
those fallen Christians
seeking success
only for a heaven's reward.

IMPROVISATION #276
BLUE PRINTS

Prior images
and blue prints of spring
my voice recalls
a poet's vocabulary
of a language
with a briefing
from my urban reading
in club corridors
with consolation hints
of a Picasso relief
at a landscape of choice
drawing me in shadows
of his concentric circles
shaping lines
as we witness sounds
of birds with scattering wings
from windows
of my studio underground.

IMPROVISATION#275
A BEFORE DAWN DREAM

Curious
   furious thoughts
of new ventures
  runs through my senses
combines for a study
 with my  pupils
in the lenses of past tenses
 passing through
 a Socratic  yet critical
eye gate reading of
"Mrs. Dalloway"
prepared for my English class
waiting with a literary analysis
of my before dawn dream,
as I'm sitting on a park bench
feeding the vocal
chorus of sparrows
along the waterfront docks
playing my tenor sax cadenzas
and riffs in corridors of a gig
not forgetting a Japanese
green tea in a china cup
from my kitchen
my cat runs into consummate
waiting rooms
as if it is a springtime to dig
from ideas for a reality check
that I've sought to relocate
and recall the scenes
of my morning dream
in visionary words
as if this poet will wait on
his past thoughts
without self pity
getting up in day light
to check the grandfather clock
putting on a sweater
mailing my letter
to an editor
going along the local deck
in a brief jog
near these still snowy rocks
sitting along the home harbor sea
reading out loud my poetry
thinking this disconsolate life
here in late February
may rather be seen
as in Platonic shadows or knots
or in a Picasso of surreal reality
not dispirited to learn  any lesson
that a still life
has a metamorphosis for us all
in which we are always taught
to discern the fury of spirits
which may have a causality
from last night's dream
of a chance universe
that verse even casually
derives from writing in caves
caught by a golden sun
in a window dome of surprise
from this light on these waves
that we have not sought
that only my memory of data
saves for me a later time.

IMPROVISATION#274
AT THE SAVOY

Your scat mind
is racing with jazz
it's a bee bop's emotion
that cannot stop
its poet riffs
as you interweave
to unwind and deposit
a bottle of perfumed lotion
on the blind singer
as if in a crucible of romance
is raw emotion
when even the boy
in the Savoy corner
is able to dance on stage
making us believe
we are all in a locomotion
of a love connection
to chat and engage.

IMPROVISATION#273
AT THE CAFE ZOLA

You recognized him
in his disguise
at the Cafe Zola
he was playing
the part of
Alfred Dreyfus
in another century's scam
returning from
Devil's Island
that very nearly cost
him his aging life and honor
in his epitaph
when the politics
of prejudice and jealousy
transfixes even
the stage of every art
with disconsolate strife
in a language of the just
emoting with shame and rage
at his engaging part
yet as the actor leaves
the restaurant corridors
he is politely asked
without regret
for his autograph
name and signature
on the program notes
even from the jet set.

IMPROVISATION#272
NATURE'S MARK

Nature's mark
left my initials
of praise
on the bark of an Elm
amazing me
who wrote wore this tribute
after an urban reading
at the art club
overwhelmed
by the response
of many years
near the local vineyard
as an unexpected breeze
curved its branches back
on the earth affectionately
by a windy day before spring
as we are feeding the birds
feeling the old vulnerability
which made me an impression
in part to share
a stranger's ability in vocal words
to put my signature
on the dark wood
dubbed into an expression
that spoke to our neighborhood.

IMPROVISATION#271
A CITY MOON

A city moon's dust
falls under the shoes
of this running afternoon
pacing for a marathon
over a breath of wind
by the seashore miles
mistaken by surprise
a hawk surprises me
on a now leafless tree
moving under an arch
of nuances
in a wonder of clouds
in March
which wisely dance
between the sleep houses
as contestants
who are shivering
as they talk about the race.

IMPROVISATION
#270
THE SKY

The sky
all of a sudden
is pitch-black
as local teens
play soccer, anyway
crashing a ball
like a missile
among snapshots
as my cat
is caught
in the thistles
of rose bushes
in that vocal free for all.

IMPROVISATION#269
TRANSFORMATION

In the woods
a fawn searching for a pond
looking as a country sprite
notices a jogger running
over and beyond
the river with a love letter
to deliver.

IMPROVISATION#268
AWAKENING

Awakening
       with a swan lake
      ballet
of ice skating
   in the local pond
   as shadows of winter
give us away
hearing a duo
of violin and cello
playing a spider man
jazz melody
we are outsiders
 from windows
 looking into a wellspring,
eating pistachios and almonds
    watching
from a Cambridge library
a line sparrows
from the Canadian hinterland
who sing  on Longfellow bridge
when we suddenly converse with
two  visiting Russian women
in the dawn reading Pushkin
        to their children
in the shadows
planting  saplings.

IMPROVISATION#267
PLAYING ME

You played a recording
of Bach Inventions
on April Fool's day
we knew it was Glenn Gould
by the intonation and tone
as his  pure proclamation
on the piano
only he could convey.

IMPROVISATION#266
SLANDER

When you slander or deface
another's house of worship
especially in Rhode Island
it sums up what is lost
as humanity
slips from the human race
we may still hear Roger Williams
voice speaking for tolerance
in this veneer of a reprimand
which sums up prejudice
in its sheer disgrace.

IMPROVISATION#265
REVIEWING A MONTAGE

Reviewing a montage
of Italian films,
Fellini,Pasolini,
and Roberto Rossellini
blinds drawn
this February
here in my garage
with an old scene
of a James Dean motorcycle
flashing its lights at dawn
my memory returns to me
of the tiny art theater
on Symphony row
in Boston
where after my music lesson
of harmony, solfeggio
strings and playing piano chords
an adolescent would go alone
to a two for one matinee show
after a having a meal
of a cheese croissant
with fish chowder
steak and potato
with pocket money
from my great aunt Sarah
then walk to the waterfront
from my apartment
in the day's enlarged sunlight
wishing to travel on swan boats
awakening by the opera balcony
opening as my cousin Rita
dressed in red
sings the Carmen arias
with the Habanera all day
going through my head
I'm ending Saturday night
with a poet's lonely words
in a deposit
of new diary entry
watching a bluebird
on a snowy Evergreen tree
from my sofa bed.

IMPROVISATION#264
BIRD FLIGHT

Their feathers are left
over the roof corridors
near the weather vane
in the cleft of a nest
after their bird flight
in the anonymous sky
this February
illuminating my hope
for an early spring
here at first light
taking care
of a neighbor's sheep dog
in my sound proof studio
living with jazz nostalgia
playing riffs on my tenor sax
in my poetry underground
waking up from sleep
watching hopscotch
and soccer players
in the breathless breeze
surround the park
in the field of Oak trees
as we make our way
for a bog turtle rescue
still in the dark.

IMPROVISATION#263
A FLAT SKIER

Vibes of a flat skier

in a third of a second

to stay aerodynamic
in split standings

by down hills\ 

blinking away

playing and chopping

in the slide of the snow

with a chance thrill
of a slalom
in an appointment

by muzzling his scarf

separating the field
from other gliders

entering the language
in fourth position turns

without a speeding

as his constraints slides
into shielding momentum
of a run and jump
noticing a blackbird
on a branch
in an abrupt perception
at the terrain
of Monet
that suddenly gives away
to an avalanche.

IMPROVISATION#262
KEEP IT A SECRET

Having a standing room
invitation
  the door opens
for an engaged Beat
poet who enters
unannounced
delivering a line
keeping it a secret
until now speaks to us
with confidence
in a form of balances
of meter and sound
from an impression
of celebrating
in an underground
of word play in a world
where love is
hoping our life
will turn around
between high evenings
and slow breathing of words
rapping our feet
not to high jack
the voices of realities
but soaring to the apparitions
on the back of sky birds
to pivot as time slips
away of symbols
of sources in wellsprings
or in apparitions off camera
which is taking our picture
the poet punching back
the last knots
of all past grievances
with no strings attached.

IMPROVISATION#261

CLIMATE CHANGES

Hurricanes /   into the night

unsettled earthquakes/   exchanged 

  into strange weather sources
  with shock waves

forecasting/a climate pattern like 

eccentric poetry
        or  concentric
or geometric art on one hand

painting us  on the deck

in a fracking time line
finding a bird feather on land

   no one expected to see a rebirth
in light years appearing
     again without expiration
to suppress the evidence
or a flaw of sequences  into
a failure of dates
within a tempest  of course

especially the weather / phenomena

     the Manhattan critics
once correctly
vehemently saw 

only in Lautrec.

IMPROVISATION#260
ON THE MARGINS

Living on the country margins
and outlines from the snow
demanding the bard compose
sitting by the window
to hear the jazz pianist
composing a concerto
based on Poe's writings
masking something of mystery
then transposing at the strings
on bz 's makeshift Beat poem
in Gothic twilight shadows
below Harvard Square
he suddenly sings.

IMPROVISATION#259
YOU WROTE GRAFFITI

Writing Beat graffiti
with white chalk
swinging by at night
on my motorcycle/
to the warehouse porch
stopping with a flat
yet playing the blues
on my guitar
scorched by the heat
with my flashlight
watching shooting stars/
taking off
with my abstract paintings
which we had stored
for a rainy day.

IMPROVISATION#258
PLAYING CHOPIN

Playing Chopin
with notes of etudes
as an open metamorphosis
of poetry
splashes out sounds
I'm noticing his own miniature
on the piano my feet up
being taken on my birthday
to the Soho underground
of Beat and jazz moments
in a mature ten year old
effervescent of catastrophes
and apostrophes
reading in my homework
with a Russian ballerina
whose father was exiled
in Siberia when America
crashes and smiles
at the old and new country
who were having
Stalin or McCarthy news speak
on their daily T.V. kangaroo trials.

IMPROVISATION#257
SUDDENLY

Suddenly in the long hall
in a sweat and instinct
from Moscow, Idaho
you bet on politicians
gambling on numbers
horses, dogs
chess,cards,checkers
with links to
the red and black
while reading Stendahl
or Fyodor Dostoevsky
wearing a fur hat
writes about his Christian
characters in a snow valley
knowingly today
language speaks to all
internationally.

IMPROVISATION#256
ETERNITY

You are still around
by the shadows
of a Beat Poet
down for certainty
putting up your feet up
at the Cedar Bar windows
demanding a conscience
showing up\in silence
for a five star eternity
in your dark abstract expressions
of Jackson Pollock
or in the louche ambiance
of Franz Kline
sharing his identity
of Frank O'Hara's
impressions.

IMPROVISATION#255
SANDOR WOERES ERA
(1913-1989)

Until your conceptions
rise and rest on your laurels
Sandor Woeres
in the depth of receptions
only tutored by nature
you make things happen
to children of all ages
in their lore from quarrels
when they stop
in playing freeze
to lines of your pages
and manage to seize
then memorize
from his Hungarian
into your poetic language.

IMPROVISATION#254
Rustaveli's Legacy

Medieval Georgia
was good to us, it seems
to a forthright on- loan poet
at your country's golden age
who asked to dream
for light across the sky
to deposit his words
now buried with you
in the Monastery of the Cross
visiting you like Nicodemus
at night
in a neighborhood
by the Israeli museum.

IMPROVISATION#253
(Taras Shevchenko's Legacy
1814-1861)

Eating lentils
out of the bowl
trying your hands
at poetry and landscape
with the shape and skill
of God's willing share
suffering in the raindrops
amid the dream
stops your daily nightmare
as you have no fare
to get to the Ukraine
or even shop today.

IMPROVISATION #252
BRISSET'S HOUR(1837-1919)

Reading a French art
in a catalog
by the museum's window
and came clear
across Jean-Pierre Brisset's hour
who like Rousseau
came out of a setting
in a romantic wellspring
as an inventor, translator
of a timeless age
with an underground of ideas
in philosophical reflection
a mentor of ironies
in a myriad selection
watching peonies
while jogging
in the meadows
as in an acoustic shadow
sounds in the breeze.

IMPROVISATION#251
D.H. LAWRENCE'S POEMS
(1885-1930)

You had the rainbow
of language
to bite on a pear
by a fountain pool
dazzling before you
by dreams of wreaths
of seaweed on the ocean
you awaken thorns
without artifice to share
in a flashing spike
from the fiery flame
of sunshine in a climax
in the last light
with your name on wood.

IMPROVISATION#250
ON LONGFELLOW BRIDGE
(1807-1882)

Here on Longfellow Bridge
stopping on your birthday
in the shadowed sun
by watching yellow lined trails
with dozens of hopscotch fans
on vacation week
circling the concentric circles
of this college city
in my van
students holding their art books
one with a cover of Picasso
as the dusk moves on.

IMPROVISATION #249
THOMAS LUX'S LIFE
(1946-2017)

Eye interweaves
your irony of words
that glance on the snow
of Northampton
glittering in the night
of an urban reading
in an academic basement
on a cold windy night
you circle our minds
with clever connections
we do not think to be
in perpetual motion
by shadows turning out
never to be ever erased
on the sidewalk
of self-effacement.

IMPROVISATION#248
HANDS EXTENDED

Leaning
on the branches
over the silken snow
hearing a tiny birdsong echo
whistling from the upper floors
easily by passing over
my sound proof studio
by the garden sun's shadows
a child in a soccer cap
shouts on the field
"It's almost spring
pardon me for laughing
but now I can play outside
on the swings and slide
down the green hills,"
and we know it's a rescue time
for the bog turtles
caught in man- made nets
over on the Cape
not letting anything to interfere
for us to clean
the cabin fevered rooms,
to open the doors
and get cool air
without regrets
while I'm listening
to Chopin on the radio
the cat is sliding
down the roof
diligently searching
for her glass of milk.

IMPROVISATION#247
SEVEN NEW PLANETS

Seven new planets
balance and dance
in the sky
between the sleeping
animated clouds
imaging
through the telescope
we expect the mountains
of stars to move
in the shrouded night
of a farthest dust
hoping for light
to be directed to earth
discovered
from the heavens.

IMPROVISATION#246
SPRING

Phlox put on moss
over stones
in a zen garden
as a sign of spring
each flower
and sapling
is a tiny dawn
of first light
over the curling rocks\
it says it's early
on the grandfather
clock
as some students
put on their socks
to play bocce
or La Crosse
others run
a cross country mile
to prepare
for the marathon.

IMPROVISATION#245
EXPECTING

Expecting
an ordinary walk
through the common
the morning sun is out
people are shouting
in a soccer match
met a couple
catching a plane
for a safari
in Botswana
it starts to rain
at the edge of the road
visited Edgar Allen Poe
at his statue
and got a view
of the Frog Pond
where the ice
is almost gone
and wait by the swan boats
in another line
at first light.

IMPROVISATION#244
DEFINITION

Playing the radio
and hearing the sound
of Mozart's piano concerto
number 22
Kirlschel listing 482
as I'm reading a few lines
of Virgil in Latin
hearing an infomercial
and praying by my cat
in my sound proof studio
playing soprano sax riffs
writing them down
in my portfolio
as an underground poet
jazz and classical musician
starts a search
for a definition
of learning to cope
afresh on this Thursday
yearning for an allowance
of any chance
for an extension
of a belief in my proclivity
to be beneficial for the arts
at my calling of relief
in wide hopes
of greater creativity
with a saturnine tension
in high gear
as Evergreen leaves fly
everywhere
off the slate dark roofs
on the Cape
in a late February breeze,
I'm beginning
to shape an an abstract painting
of an installation landscape
drawing trees, rivers and valleys
when all questions of angst
move aside with ease
as the ignition lights up
in this van
offering an arc of shelter
hiding from the snow flakes
against the window pane
sharing my own vigil
by rehearsing all the parts
for my new  comic play
going to a rehearsal
at the Original Theater.

IMPROVISATION#243
VISIT TO A COLLEGE TOWN

At dawn
inside the gate
of supporting roses
you read your verse
as a Beat bard
visits a college town
watching a dancing spider
who is an outsider
between the wall
now moves
near to the rock garden
now climbing
over  to the woods
near a fawn
in whose shadows
stalks us
in the courtyard
makes the sun appear
in rays of shadows
over the neighborhood.

IMPROVISATION#242
A CROW

A crow lands
on the roof
with its foliage of snow
frightening the cat
outside this dark window
at my sound proof studio
we know Bach also lives
in the countryside
I'm playing a two part
piano invention
the wind is heavy outside
at the weather vane
on the darkest corner
as the crow leaves
its balcony
by the sand on the sea
there is a bird feather
on the park bench
I'm composing
an underground poem
in French
on the gazebo.

IMPROVISATION#241
A BEAT POET

A Beat poet
looks out the window
as an icy rain stops
puts his feet up
on the chair
as he plays chess
at the outside bistro
in Harvard Square
now it again
starts to snow
the trees tremble
in the February wind
resting by the shadows
of the Charles River
his opponent from Paris
on their bench
notices his lyrical distress
is embarrassed
and asks him
to try another line
in French.

IMPROVISATION#241
AVIGDOR ARIKHA'S HOUR
(1929-2010)

Surviving fascism

in Romania

you serve

with the gall of genius

from your innovative paintings

of pure abstraction
even in the thrall

not complaining
from your war wounds 

living with pure nerve

to give to us\

your breathless portraits

of Queen Elizabeth

and attractive
Catherine Deneuve

with the keen satisfaction

from your artistic call.

IMPROVISATION # 240
HEARING ETUDES

Hearing Chopin etudes
while writing letters
in my sound proof studio
about the underground poetry
in Warsaw's Fifties
suddenly broke my cabin fever
into a scintillation
of a melody that woke
to stay with me
far from any usual melancholy
at first light
in a better mood
than merely basking in
the shooting stars last night.

IMPROVISATION#239
BOB THOMPSON
(1937-1966)

Ran into an artist
in Boston
who was familiar
with Bob Thompson
in his stark live colors
at the allegories and loyalties
of his figurative paintings
which were starry gems
in the Sixties
now in Harlem.

IMPROVISATION#238
ESCAPING TO
BRADLEY TOMLIN
(1899-1953)

Escaping cabin fever
for the abstract expressionism
in the prisms
of a forgotten
Bradley Tomlin
to be connected
yet totally free
intersected
by clearing my soul
in your associative color
and harmony.

IMPROVISATION#237
AS MANY EYES
(1866-1944)

As many eyes
pass you, Kandinsky
wanting to hide
in your concentric circles
of color
wanting assurance
from your canvas
on the walls
we are sheltered
by intersections
balancing lines
in a departing welter
from all directions.

IMPROVISATION#236
FINDING A DUFY SPACE
(1857-1953)

Finding a nuanced space
clearing my reading at the end
of the museum's catalog
a poet's life resumes
after watching a Dufy
whom Matisse influenced
wishing to be
at the "Rue Pavoisee"
as the sun gleams
on the ceiling
waking us
by its first light
and revealing
a glimpse of the sky.

IMPROVISATION#235
NOT EXPECTING

Not expecting
to be out here in the woods
of Vermont
noticing a white duck
walking out of water
from the river
we give him a croissant
in a good natured
neighborhood
near a retired Evergreen,
the air is cool
noticing the sun is passing
over a dark blueish sky
here are snow drifts
on the trunks of trees
it 's now fit for a bunk
or bird nest
as a visiting French poet
wants to rest
on a  park bench.

IMPROVISATION#234
NIGHT MUSIC 1958

Violins play,
tubas and French horn
with Cuban jazz
the next step away
in rhythmic drums
of Havana
by the well dressed
in kitty corners
the best dancers sway
into the beat
on Miami Beach
within reach
of all ambassadors
a man in a torreador
for Carnival
along the sandy corridors
of the Island,
now musicians
are curled up
at the conductor's feet
to play
Bizet's "The Pearl Fishes."

IMPROVISATION#233
A FRIEND

We watched
Di Sica's ''The Bicycle Thief''
when they sent you to war
before your time
with the belief
you would be back
unchanged
yet you became
enraged
hurt and unhinged
with P.T.S.D.
when we met
you were engaged
and going for your P.H.D.
with poetry under your arms
as your forte.

IMPROVISATION #329
WALKING THROUGH

Stopping off at
Rochelle's apartment
on April Fool's day
among pop art
and lyrics of pop songs
stepping over
strings of puppets
of her inner child
watching the walls
of Valentines
from grammar school
porcelain dolls
bubble bottles,
a copy of "Mademoiselle"
as perfumes line the air,
brushing by passports,
musical programs
you passed out
as a theater usher
hearing her voice
everywhere
when she performed
"Memory.''

IMPROVISATION#328
ON THE CAPE'S BEACH

You reached out
your cupped hands
over the waters
to the sky
hoping to bleach out
your runaway wounds
and scars of the past
trying to find a sea shell
which will not ring up
echoes of muffled memory
or lines which cannot
forecast your future.

IMPROVISATION#327
AFTER SLEEPING

After sleeping
in a street car
reading Rene Char
on a park bench
during your last storm
und drang
by keeping warm
in Indian blankets
until your buzzer rang
trying to locate
your notebook diary
and a French friend's
telephone number
hearing the rain
you slumber
without regrets.

IMPROVISATION# 326
A RUSSIAN POET

A Russian poet
a night after deftly returning
from an urban read,
now in Central Park
needed a fountain for water
like the young birds
on the snowy trees
when asked
in his secret language
of tongues
and swiftly Yevgeny received
a four course meal,
when he asked for a friend
to accompany him
he/she offered
more than a hand out
of words in the dark.

IMPROVISATION#326
WALKING

A poet wanting a drink
of water by the brook
is walking by a horse path
over shadows
of emerging grass blades
reciting Whitman
and Plath
watching a crow's nest
he's doing a run the forest
preparing for a marathon
after giving out a course syllabus
for the spring back in Boston
here among a blanket of snow
on Oak trees
in Vermont the sun is out
watching sparrows
fly off
to the White Mountains.

IMPROVISATION #325
CLOUDS

Clouds fill
a snowy February dawn
by the half-dark trees
rising over the Vermont
at this time of year
woods still open to frost
sharing the Montpelier breeze
with ice fishermen
originally from Lisbon
visiting a poet in his shed
along the sandy river banks
thanking me
for the warm cheese croissants
my aunt baked for them
in her Bread and Breakfast.

IMPROVISATION#324
NOT INTENDING

Not intending
these transformed words
to hang out on line
or meter
for it's Thursday
when Em the house keeper
next door
washes the clothes
in the machine
down cellar
and takes them out to dry outside
yet somewhere this Beat poet
takes a deep breath
of fresh air
in a frozen second month
of the new year
knowing we live only
by hearing tongues at the lore
of the past tense
or living internationally
in another country's metaphor
from a secret metamorphosis
waiting to expect a spark of change
yet unsure at this time
at the horror of Atomic war
Mr. Kurtz
for we do not fear the worse
not expecting
to be at attention as a cynosure
as we eye a sea bird
passing overhead
in the pleasure of an azure sky
today playing riffs of jazz
on the Ottauquechee river beds
toward the cliffs
of the Green Mountains
yet believing in the future
to arrange every life's mystery
if even you will remember me
or if these unsung words
will open introspective eyes
into a glass darkly
at a peace of forgiveness.

IMPROVISATION#323
1933- Berlin

Is this real
\who speaks for us
for them,
will they us away
for speaking out/
in the hallways,
they took Mrs. Raven
away last night
after they struck her
and put her with others
in the truck
we cannot believe
what Hitler is going to
do to Weimar,
and to the Republic/
in 100 years
no one will believe
but everyone will know
Mrs. Raven/
about Ravensbruck.

IMPROVISATION #322
OF ALL THE MOONS

Of all the moons
full or half
even what veils
the pale rings of sky
hearing that a fawn
or brown bear were here
leaving footprints
in the crossed shadows
by whitened branches
where soon birds of spring
will nest by New Hampshire's
back roads of the hinterland
amid the thicket
from a few chances of snow
in this forest clearing
as a skier in an overcoat tells
us he was nearly lost
down here at dawn
in a winter avalanche.

IMPROVISATION#321
BY THROWING STONES

By throwing stones
into the sea
between lunch
bouncing out far
with its own gravity
on the islands
at a distance
we have a reality
away from the beach
holding on to the railings
to step out
in the daylight
from a desolate space
over the docks
within reach of the Cape
with an artist's eye
who watches
his chance
to spy \ shape\ in sculpture
the rocks
by his water colors
to draw in palings
of a landscaped fence
by waiting only on culture
as his defense.

IMPROVISATION #320
IF YOU WERE

If you were
to do an abstract
painting
or to put on
a coat of many colors
for a landscape
from many directions
in a taxi,
or  to write
a free lance poem
or play a tenor sax
for someone waiting
in a long line at the museum
corridors
or dedicate your poetry
to a lost soul
who wishes to sing
the blues
you will be absorbed
in the Underground
trying to explore
any aspiring art
or listen to hear the sound
of a cadenza's score
in a two part invention.

IMPROVISATION#319
UNSURE OF THEMSELVES

Unsure of themselves
    two Beat poets
finally     find a statue
in Central Park
to sleep against
in the dark
railing  with words
until they invite others
here in the Sixties
to a happening
by fevered green plants
emerging for spring
underground
and  suddenly are joined
by hundreds
for a free expression
and listen to a reading
with jazz sounding
in the grass
among the birds.

IMPROVISATION#318
GIACOMETTI DREAM
(1901- 1966)

In his surrealist
drawings,
in last night's
Giacometti dream
outside images
camouflaged at me
in the black and white
reality\with an occasion
to visit with a painter
and sculptor
with his success of
"Three Men Walking,"
or "Venice Woman II."

IMPROVISATION#317
BREAKING OUT

Breaking out
of February blues
with cabin fever
in my sound proof
studio along the Cape
and nearly grounded,
briefly listening to news
and weather
waiting for the spring
or a thaw in winter
with a chorus of birds
house bound on the roof
finding a feather
out on the deck
playing cards
while listening to riffs
of Coltrane
on jazz radio
reading in my art book
about the paintings
of Juan Gris
and Toulouse Lautrec.

IMPROVISATION#316
AT ARMS LENGTH

At arms length
at the open art show
on the beach sands
of the Cape
one painting
draped with silk
on this parapet
watches us
as a portrait
of a Beat
who understands
as his eye dropped
on the sand
reaches out
emerges from his canvas
and so to speak
reads a poem.

IMPROVISATION#315
WHAT IS VALID

What is valid
or worth it all
Dostoeyevsky's gamble
or Kierkegaard's wager
or the id
or ego of a Freudian shrink
analyzing a handsome
unemployed laborer
once a low wage earner
but always high
during the vacation season
and and an artisan
who thinks up plans
for large cultural installations
scales the modernist prisms
and shapes from bricks
away from academic critics
with landscape minimalists
for free spirited artists
in Russian, then in American
Constructionism\ of the 20's
now in the loop of networks
for ex Marxist speakers on sites
who also like Groucho
more than the group think
of Stalinists
we who prefer Beat poets
in a coup from churning around
and learning from each other.

IMPROVISATION#314
BEING DISCREET

Watching hawks
on trees
by crevices
and caught by rocks
along the Cape
being discreet
listening inward
to the heart shape
of a Beat
whose vibrations
pass through a bar
of justice
scaling the ice fissure
to locate salmon
or squid
and spacing words
out to the world
of ego and id.

IMPROVISATION#313
ON A BEAT'S JOG

Silence
then a marathon
jog in the morning
after you wash
your hair and teeth
with a comb
of mushroom shells
from the harbor
you stop to write a line
wishing you
were with Ruskin
at the "Stones of Venice"
or in California
reaching out
for a snail's shell
remembering your audition
with a high pitched
soap opera star, Vera
who sang in Russian
from Pushkin's
first act of "Onegin."

IMPROVISATION# 312
FRANCIS PONGE'S WORLD
(1899-1988)

A cut
from a lost hang nail
haunts you
in the sitting room
embodying
your exercise
on a scale
of seven notes
on the piano
from Debussy
which expounds
a daily melody
chafed against you
for six months
escaping only in a landscape
of dark trees
by the Seine.

IMPROVISATIONS# 311
RENE CHAR'S HOUR
(1907-1998)

Never helpless
to hide his body
of verse
in trunks
of explosions
against the enemy/ of poetry
here by a glass
sparkles of water in the sun
drunk with worry
losing yourself in the Resistance
without the warmth
of a chosen convenience
for history shies
against collaborators
always near by,
you write until midnight
on bandages and shadows
by window panes
curled up by plants
hearing the rain
of a blighted sleep.

IMPROVISATION# 310
WALKED BY THE MUSEUM WALLS
PIRANESI(1720-1778)


With a view of a cold dawn
the sun risen out by shadows
near a pond by birches
hearing a chorus of sparrows
cardinals and other birds
amid hidden bulbous plants
along Boston's Fenway
here at the museum walls
on this February
by narrow steps
eating almonds
not far from home
when pleasant bulging eyes
wish to expect more
from Piranesi's grey halls
with "Capricious Inventions''
expanding into a visionary Rome
we are already captured
into buildings,
over his bridges drawings
of neoclassic spaces
as we inspect
his imprisoned by doors
behind his dungeons and jails
to flood his audience with the light
from a scale of imaginary colors
by satin sofas
as we recite declensions
at antiquity's phrases of Latin
speaking so fast that our mind races
while remaining in the dark
of other images on nearby floors
which command a renaissance
of sparkling words
at our nascent new modernity.

IMPROVISATION# 309
WALTER PATER'S HOUR
1839-1994

Memories of an aesthete
in the choice drawing room
by the Walter Pater's
mirrors
in extravagance
of a novelist
walking about
who has a voice
signalling a literary event
in a picture of a gentleman
spanning an innocent
with inconstancy of mood
yet not at ease
wary of any caricature
aware of the existence
in a literary solitude.

IMPROVISATION# 308
RUSKIN'S WORLD
(1819-1900)

John Ruskin's world
in defense for Turner
upon the artist's plight
and in his learner's
permitted love
of the pre Raphaelites,
in his guest lectures
committed
with his fine arts words
on culture,architecture
and admitted encounters
in the business of painting
discerns in his insight
of waiting on dry bones
at in imparting discoveries
from stones at a study
of geology
amid hidden rocks and plants
in his quest of biology
and above all the sky birds
in a study of ornithology.

IMPROVISATION# 307
AT SHELLEY'S TIME
1792-1882

All the epics sought
in the background
of Shelley's time
and Odes taught
with a classic memory
of honor codes asking
to be set free
without regret
in any crime of disaster
with Mab and Alastor
now in alabaster white
why in this night space
does Shelley's hearth still shine
were' blind sighted
by the fireplace
in your ''Masque of Anarchy."

IMPROVISATION#306
KEATS ERA
(1795-1821)

Like the experience of Borges
in Argentina
I'm reading in a day dream
of sequences
in regard to Keats verse
only by chance
in my adolescent universe
with a visionary's light glance
yet knowing he has wedded
and changed us forever
as Keats words drew me
into a memorial
for an English burial
at a young age of twenty five
and that into an oblivion
but not forgetting
he has made me alive
in a surviving  an editorial
of another age
imagining large floating flowers
by boats and barges
over the Thames river beds
you who once blind sided us
for long hours to deliver ud
into your mirrors of influence
yet it only took a brief meeting
wedded to discover
in our minds forever
your unique powers of revelation
within a lover's chorus
at the thrill of walking alone
by a wellspring of corridors
under nature's branches
as birdsong melodies
settled on me
in my memory
from that rested day
up at the green hills
we still long for your
clever words for merciful
knights and ladies
escaped in our heart and spirit
and departing away
from a middle aged Hades
for a more Romantic scene
to take up your youthful part
as reigning but resigned souls
who signed
onto to drink our mouthful
of a love potion
from your heavenly disposition
in ways
of a language celebration
up staged for us poets
to think only out of the box
from a vein which unlocks
us away from shamans
and Haman's of religion
out of a story book sense
in life's brief oblivion
searching in a personal region
for truth and its consequence
conceding genius and freedom
in your ''Endymion."

IMPROVISATION#305
LORD BYRON'S DAY
(1788-1824)

By a flowered bed
somewhere in Greece
Lord Byron
is fully remembered
in my dream
released in his shirtsleeves
as England's bard
who believed in a poetry
wiped clean of camouflage
from routine images
in his texts of bringing
down all tyranny
of misfortune
to be released by our memory
in his vanguard of verse
without any stereotype
under the moon and sun.

IMPROVISATION#304
WORDSWORTH'S ERA
1770-1850

What a romantic mood
in a dream
of a country field
from a thought process
best forgetting the medieval tale
congealed by the snow
falling asleep with an ale
you find a blessed shield
taken up by revolutionary France
you have love's laughter
for a greater partner
after the dawn shadows
you search by the church
for rows of daffodils in the sun
deeply in the morning woods
composing ''The Prelude''
as the trees swing
on a shadow
in your neighborhood
of forest branches
with birds on a wing
feeling an earthly
anonymous personality
though you still wish to sing
by your open windows
as your restful years pass
to be cut loosed,
William Wordsworth
only revealed
into ''The Recluse.''

IMPROVISATION #303
COLERIDGE'S TIME
(1772-1834)

After a knight departed
on your last Coleridge page
writing of medieval France
your Genevieve
came into camouflages
in your day dreams
murmuring she wants to dance
after a lover was discovered
laughing on his horse
and with it a knowledge
of an undercover romance
for a poet riding
over the London bridge
who deciding to meet her
and marry her in the morning
it seems it was you,of course.

IMPROVISATION#302
JOHN CLARE'S DREAM
(1793-1864)

John Clare's dream
careened into a nightmare
awake at last in his room
viewing through postcards
of his estranged mind
historical English scenes
of the countryside
as if a gloomy oracle
offered to him
a sleepwalker's insight
though sliding Doric windows
he swore he saw a hawk
until shadows of first light.

IMPROVISATION #301
BETWEEN SPACES

Between spaces
of possibilities
to drape this February day
and welcome into art
with an ease of sculpture
by studying Oldenburg's
"The Wing"
in the parting shape
from a gun ray
at at an emerging culture
of my own storytelling
from ribbons of clay.

IMPROVISATION#300
WHERE DOES IT GET ME

Where does it get me
in my tutorial,
John Milton
now tripping with exhausted
energy in late February
in the sun
riddled with imagination
within an anchored kayak
with my back about the sea,
will a jazz fiddle playing guy
receive anonymity
from a memorial scholarship
or a medallion on land
in a territorial marathon
getting in shape and out
for a ten mile journey
crossing out to the islands
sailing off the Cape.

IMPROVISATION#299
ICE FISHING

Ice fishing by the river
as leaves and twigs
fall from the branches
of the trees
into the Maine wind
out on the rocks
as the water drops
into a mood of reflections
from the market basket
in a lacerating surprise
at the late February air
absorbing us there
on an island of solitude.

IMPROVISATION#298
DAVID SMITH'S SCULPTURE
1906-1965

The fingers
of a strong welder
in an alchemy
of metallic stones
turns inward
caught in machine parts
from taut forms
when working
in his steel "Forgings"
those happenings
with biomorphic features
from enigmatic installations
put together without strings
by a color field instructor
of a new mature nature
gives us satisfaction
at outside reflections emerge
from an iconic stature
in a statue verging
at a geometric abstraction
from Dave Smith's sculpture.

IMPROVISATION#297
A BEAT IN SANFRANCISCO

A visiting Beat poet
falls asleep
at a Giant's game
in his enigmatic slumber
pictures a series
of literary and lottery
numbers of library books
he has recently read
in the early night darkness
says "Yes" to a proposal
at his beds disposal
recites in Russian
a lyrical love poem
of V.Ivanov
for his February birthday
as it starts to rain
suddenly realizing
that his vocalizing verse
is not in vain
as a deafening roar
sounding like lightning
in another section
it's actually for a home run
change in the score
which gives him
a soon to wake
direction for a musical
he is composing on the piano
at his studio
not retreating a second
for an enchanting encirclement
as an inclement
war commences
over a crowd of words.

IMPROVISATION#296
SUSPENDING BELIEF

Pushing me in a  daydream
vision photographed
toward refuges in images
of connections
in curiosity of 19th century
ardor in a lucid painting
from a deafening clasp
of Goethe's imagination
scaled on a fidelity of angels
over a nemesis of ladders
into slopes of mad puzzles
from a metamorphosis
of pale traffic embellished
from an enigmatic Picasso
into shadows on my horizon.

IMPROVISATION#295
TALE OF GENJI

My niece
is in Florida
teaching the"Tale
of Genji"
trying to understand
the sensibility
in the Japan
of the eleventh century
while I was reaching
to celebrate at the Common
over a snowy dawn
on the 19th of a January birthday
by the serious earthly statue
in the shadowy lane
of the mysterious labyrinth story
from the Boston born Poe.

IMPROVISATION#294
WITH MY BATON

With my baton
in hand
conducting Berlioz
at this adolescent time
winged in rhythm
hearing the strings
of violins and cellos
while outside on the trees
there are heavenly birds
with soft wings
with shadows verging
on a Byronic spring
though he is now a Beat poet
here he was at eleven
taking his sporting debut
before a row of seats
at his first chance
at a bowing guest appearance
emerges conquering
his audience
as a king by the orchestra pit
in short pants.

HEARING BELLINI #293

Hearing Vincento
Bellini's opera
"I Puritani"
set on the radio
at the Met today
with the enigmatic poet
at his libretto by Count Pepoli
takes me back
to Joan Sutherland
and Pavarotti
when after my music lesson
we're playing duets
thinking with regrets
about those days
of reading Milton
and anything
more random in lyrical
poetry now appearing
in my avuncular memory
on my Saturdays
at the Boston Symphony
hearing the jaws of singers
open with consolable music
of vocal jocular applause.

IMPROVISATION #292
TALKING HEADS

Mad scenes in rounds
of television talking heads
with random speech
directed at their opponents
with trembling grief
at the lack of chance signal
and sentimental heart-break
in night watch relief
from gossipy segments
and orchestrated movements
of high drama
overrated stumping for
and against Trump
or Obama.

IMPROVISATION#291
WITHOUT VISA

Without visa
or passport
considering how
he feels
in every borderline
moment
of his Carnival
experience
dressed up
as a rock star
and a soccer player
which he used to be
always willing
here in Cambridge
to bridge the gap
(as he takes
a white pill)
into reality.

IMPROVISATION#290
READING DICKINSON

Reading Emily Dickinson
hearing a helicopter overhead
on the Amherst Common
meeting a runaway
named Stanley
near the icy riverbed
needing a stamp
by his letter head
to deliver a late Valentine card
who had been
drinking white wine
from a discarded bottle
all night
who enjoys the wilderness
and is a part time
beach comber
says he's still carded
but out of shape
trying his revealed hand
at either poker
or at a New England landscape
cooks for himself
enjoying fresh fishing
for salmon in the lake
or listening to the pop music
of Dusty Springfield
on his radio tape constantly
after his last break-up
planning to go to the Cape
after doing his laundry
which he needed
money for.

IMPROVISATION#290
IN THIS WOODSY HOUR

In this woodsy hour
hearing Canadian geese
up in Maine
painting a landscape
by a hockey rink
that is abandoned
except for a Vietnam
somnambulist
who manages
to tell me his life story
before he drinks
the black coffee.

IMPROVISATION#289
FEBRUARY 18

Shuffling as if he were
on stilts yet with panache
secretly laughing
over the White Mountain
right armed with
the length of skis
a bandage over her eyes
with the outlook of a pirate
after the avalanche
hearing the swirled hissing
of the windy branches
she whistles for a world
to help give a mouth
of monitored strength
in the February sunshine
now curled into her diary.

IMPROVISATION#288
MEMORY

Half way
to the laughter
of your large eyes
in a resonance blues
you play tenor sax
after dusk
in a jam gig
relaxing at a Manhattan club
with Warhol prints
staring at you
on the starry wall
someone is always
writing graffiti
over the studio benches
at the empty room
with a one light bulb
in the hallways
outside it is raining,
you catch a neon butterfly
who is one day old
just when you are reciting
a Nabokov poem
from the Russian
in the dark cellar
your breath catches
the pollen descending
from the basement window.

IMPROVISATION#287
INTO A NEW PRESENCE

You can almost feel
it's spring near the docks
of the ocean
given another chance
along Cape Cod
into a new presence,
I'm rooted under
a late February breeze
seeing a few signs
along the highway
like this Vermont brown bear
by the forest woods
who does not want
his picture taken
near a burdock on grasses,
my guitar has suddenly appeared
after a season under the sofa
with a swaying melody in E
hearing the blue birds
over snowy branches
or cardinal sing
above the Evergreen
kneeling down
to nature's God
by the sunshine
is already on the beach
by riverbeds
seagulls face us
openly near the rocks
a local sculptor is out
shaping geometric patterns
and an eccentric Beat poet
looking like Whitman
returns from Manhattan
is stammering to write
on the sand.

IMPROVISATION # 286
IN FLY OVER COUNTRY

In fly over country
among a cloud
of neighbors from next door
left in between Coasts
of poplar trees
and popular culture
right in the middle
of listening to the breathing
of mountains
without a census
or consensus.

IMPROVISATION
ENGAGEMENT #285

Segments in life is reality
as in the Truman show
like a day old newspaper
abandoned in a gaslight
of insulation
from our own surfaces
yet we go on in moments
like the second movement
in  a Mozart's piano concerto
finding the power to dream.

IMPROVISATION#284
INSIDE THE FILM

Becoming myself
in the Italian film
"Rocco and His Brothers"
going through
with ease
of open ended
conversations
taking us on
on the sidelines
of five sons
moving to Milan
needing work,
please.

IMPROVISATION#283
ON SUNNY TRAILS

On sunny trails
of ski lifts
out of sight
up here in Vermont
light sifts through
on surface of the hills
in a frequented breeze
from brightness
by birds on branches
of barren trees
exiled within my words
in the morning mist.

IMPROVISATION#282
AT THE MUSEUM

At the museum
we watch so much
of the Dutch masters
even Rembrandt
then on balance
the abstract modernists
facing us by the avant-gard
touching us by being
transparent in their paintings,
fact checking these:
the Bauhaus
De Stijl, Bonnard
and Matisse.

IMPROVISATION #281
TALKING POINTS

Determined
at a re -doing venture
as if at a lecture
in French literature
at the Sorbonne
going on about Proust
as if the teacher
is sharing his poling
numbers of who
is really paying attention
with a rambling
of talking points
at the unfiltered hearts
in a clever gambling lesson
of a literary history
unloosed in a raw skin
of a chicken coming
to roost
as one visiting law student
slumbers at his bench
and one poet is indulgent
with rapt attention
another is in a rapture
of refreshment forever.

IMPROVISATION #280
HANGING ON

With an invisibility
of shadowy flakes
over the windshield
resonant by my fast feet
moving to Mozart's
piano concerto
now going up to Vermont
we can already taste
a spinach and cheese
hot croissant
at my aunt's Bread
and Breakfast.

IMPROVISATION#279
KITASONO KATUE'S HOUR
1902-1978

Sleeping among
a bird's nest
and statue
on the Common
resting with a day dream
asleep again
now keeping awake
among fallen branches
from a recent snow storm
reading the dark surrealism
of Katasono Katu
a tourist to Boston notices me
takes my photo
in the sunshine
we speak in French
then slowly reads
to me from an anthology
on my park bench
of his Japanese poetry.

IMPROVISATION# 278
YAMAMOTO KANUKE'S PHOTOS


Outside your studio
mirrors of swirling snow
by river streams
at an out of door rendezvous
near the sea
as engaged for a surrealist
complexity from photos
in question marks
from a glass house reality.

IMPROVISATION#277
KENJI MIYAZAWA'S ERA
1896-1933

Only the theatrical color
in eager lights of the T.V.
by this sleepwalker
reading in the early morning
your Japanese poetry
sustains my will
on a winter day
running down
the white hills.

IMPROVISATION #276
CONNECTIONS

We Beat poets try
to find connections
 which puzzle
 us into inflections
  like a prospect
of a new translation
even from our passport
when I saw
 543X563
on a woman's arm
who told me a child
in an accented voice
with her wrinkled smile
in a long line
at L.A.X airport
she had lived there
(as a child)
and almost died
in Germany.

IMPROVISATION# 275
GINSBERG'S TIME
1926-1997

With a new jersey on
he shouted a name
kissed a swimming figure
in the midst of deep snow
at midnight
after the Warhol show
from entangled shadows,
what did we know!

IMPROVISATION#274
MASAO NAKAGIRI'S ERA
1919-1983

The door closes
a hand passes by
to wave
only one snow drift
remains
when names
are forgotten
like our shadows
when the clouds lift
at first light.

IMPROVISATION #273
SHANTURO TANIKAWA'S HOUR

On the boundaries
   where my face
would freeze
if it were not
  for the sunshine
trembling on the horizon
 for a poet's ease.

IMPROVISATION#272
NORIKO MIZUTA

Planted into
a sustained path
by the corner pantry
where there is light
from the sun
you quietly translate
Sextant and Plath.

IMPROVISATION#271
SAGAWA CHICA'S TIME
1911-1936

Snow unhinges
the slate roof
yet you are oblivious
as you translate
James Joyce
from an avant- garde
voice into the night.

IMPROVISATION #270
KIM CHIHA'S DAWN

It has frozen you
in the Korean dawn
waiting for a train
having a banana
putting away the skin
in your pocket
yet not feeling
closed in
not far from branches
of birds
by the playground
with the sounds
of children
playing jazz tunes
with echoes heard
on violins.

IMPROVISATION #269
KU UN'S SUNLIGHT

Korean waves
   by the sunlight
over the sea
nestled birds fly
over the hills
beyond enduring
the heat from the sky
a poet outlines
his words
near the reeds.

IMPROVISATION #268
MONTALE'S HOUR

Tell me
what ivy grotto
speaks to the flowers
or the last soul
who prayed
by the shadows
at the dormer window
late in the day
in the former ghetto
visiting Dora Marcus
at Montale's hour
hearing a cello's recording
echo of Jacqueline Du Pre
playing Bruch's
Kol Nidrei.

IMPROVISATION#267
SHARING THE MOON WITH LI PO

Sharing the moon
with Li Po
drinking a green
Chinese tea
on the back balcony
feeling free
to soon be in my kayak
by the muddy shore
taking off for the country.

IMPROVISATION#266
AMANUENISIS

You offer me
a Lisbon assistance
from the caravel
history of boats
as you fish for salmon
and help with
an Iberian translation
of my poetry
as you travel
from the equator
wishing you success
now and later.

IMPROVISATION #265
BY AN INDIAN READING LAMP

By a reading lamp
watching out
my window
at the snow shadows
stamped on the road
over the landscape
of color field
by the visible hull
of a traffic of sea boats
anchored near
the home harbor
as birds with wing beats
take off over my roof
and here painting
in my sound proof studio
a poem emerges
in words and voices
from my underground
as scenes from a Satyajit Ray
film ''The World of Apu''
move through my mind.

IMPROVISATION#264
JAPANESE FILMS

Watching Ozu's
films after a storm
the country road
is singing
as flakes fall
reminding me
of Japanese postcards
in landscapes
from a rustic play
enjoying
"Tokyo Story."

IMPROVISATION# 263
OUTED

Outed
locked out
sand bagged
fired up
rushed over
disposed of
swallowed down
in a spotlight of silence
like Roualt's clown
from concentric inscriptions
of Picasso's red shadow
as in a critic's coup
through emerged
unhinged chance hoops
of a review in epiphanies
from the underground beds
painting in geometric circles
from eccentric descriptions
as singed
and unsigned enigmas
are found in manuscripts
riddled with Auden's
or Eliot's
magnetic sound caught
drawing in from fiddled
modern enigmatic writing
in caves now indisposed
as from Stravinsky or Adorno
on a classified dictionary
of a critic's antennae
in sound proof studios
as a whistle blower
with a life long given
knotted and purged
artistic sentence
as a Beat in a poem.

IMPROVISATION#262
A FROZEN BREEZE

A frozen breeze
 goes through my shirt
trees are dripping  icicles
 forming  from sunlight
coming across as graffiti
   from a morning
of turnstile waves
in circles
roaring in the shadowy sea
  in the country harbor
as in a picture puzzle
  from my aerial photos
high above earth
in the helicopter
  from a turtle rescue
off Cape Cod.

IMPROVISATION#261
A GARDEN CHAIR

A garden chair
with snow decked over
her with dripping icicles
reminding me of Picasso's
''Nightmare'' in a painting
formed from concentric circles
in an abstract color field
riding my bicycle
in the villages
swiftly behind my fences
with trembling drifts
of shadows in the meadows
once with huge sunflower
now in concealed camouflages
waiting to catch up
for me and to be revealed
from my windows
in the languages of spring.

IMPROVISATION#260
NO FORM OF ILLUSION

No form of illusion
or self delusion
by these echo of sea shells
rolling on the beach
at Bar Harbor
listening the sea voices
of songbirds
reaching out by rocks
and ice fishing crevices
playing jazz riffs of sax
into my small boat ride
between the streams
to relax
before the shooting stars
rise in the cloudy sky.

IMPROVISATION#259
WANTING TO BE

Wanting to be tightly
enclosed and locked
in a Vermont spa
warming up
in a country store
to be left free
hearing thunder
after the storm
hearing brown bear sounds
with bird songs voices
of vibration in the woods
knowing we are here
to learn and observe
in our color field paintings
a poet's landscapes
to deposit words to uncover
in depth and shape
the animals in our midst
from our acquainted insight
and always with perspicacity
in our art and music hallways
of our quiet studios
to be as vertically augmented
without any shadow
of diminished notes
in any capacity
rocking within me.

IMPROVISATION#258

Hearing a thunder strike
along Bar Harbor Beach
up in Maine
taking market face photos
reaching out
with food and drink
to laughing ice fishermen
often cut out of society
in the hinterland
hearing a continual birdsong
from Canadian sea voices
on a February morning
out here in the cold ports
amid salt piles
near lifting lost cars
on the highway
after winter's
last snow storm
in the neighborhood
we shadow uncongenial drifts
from a freezing network
as we spy a forest bear
unwinding in the woods.

IMPROVISATION#257
MOVING ON THE ROCKS

Moving on the rocks
kelp and seaweed
at the mouth of the harbor
in Plymouth on purpose
eyeing a humpback whale
from a helicopter
after rescuing
a baby porpoise
off the Coast at Gloucester
who had been torn away
from his mother
by these mad winds
feeling good until a shark
passes within the dark waters
trying to absorb my energy
but will put off this creature
inside of my memory
to have inside me
until the vibration
again follows my shadow
in a sunrise latitude
of my awakened poetry
will move me out of sight
to surface on the face
of the waves.

IMPROVISATION#256
THOSE MOMENTS

Those moments
 of clarity
in language
of color field paint
in the silent hour
of creativity
when the weight
of the world
has nothing to do
with me
in my Sixties happenings
from my own sagacity
in a precarious balance
of hearing Warhol's laughter
at the city graffiti walls
swaying at the surfing Frug
in my own capacity.

IMPROVISATION#255
DRIVING TO VERMONT

The windshield has a coat
of snow from a recent storm
leaving my sound proof studio
driving to Vermont
to meet my aunt
in her Bread and Breakfast
to share a latte at her bench
with hot almond croissants
speaking in French
at her kitchen nook
sharing my poetry words
by abandoned barns
once full of horses
near the railway trains
over the pond which glitters
from the sunshine
feeding the tiny sparrows
and blackbirds
where there is ice fishing
even in the still life rain
falling continually
by log cabin shadows
feeling I'm in a landscape
of a Winslow Homer painting.

IMPROVISATION#254

ON COUNTRY ROADS

On country roads

there are shadows

of black ice

under the snow drifts

closing my windows

hearing the radio play

David Bowie

by the narrow streets

near the glittering Charles

with shadows that glitter

in the sun of diamond waves
passing over the islands
watching Cape Cod birds
over a high flying bridge

as we pass the vacant woods

near the riverbank

in a winter labyrinth

of a carpet of Evergreen

a poet visits a friend

originally from Lisbon

in an old neighborhood

outcast by a fishing village.

IMPROVISATION#253
WAKING WITH SEA GULLS

Waking up by sea gulls
departing the sky
in a profusion of clouds
along the Cape Cod beach
the noon air is cool
as a beachcomber walks
glaring along the sand
tells me he his name is Ned
and is a runaway
entangled in seaweed
tells me he is needy
on a winter February thaw
and draws me a landscape
in an epiphany of nature
peeks at the waves
under the sun rays shadow
and picks his way down
to the shore
bathing in frozen water
after a week.

IMPROVISATION #252
READING REVERDY

Reading Reverdy
 pausing on the beach
      in blankets
another is drawing
 a mural in a color field
in canvas covering
   over orange and red sponges
on the sea Coast beds
     to astonish us
 we reaching out for shells
among the shore's seaweed
 stones of Provence
   yet finding whale bones
   by a diary of influence
from a politician
as we read French quatrains
   as and hide out
from shields
of hail and rain.

IMPROVISATION# 251
INFORMATION

They chart
 in infusions
   of smearing
   people in the news
of official politicians
 with selective leaks
or  embolden strategies
of fearing the dirt
in a pitching
of a cloak and dagger
 hearing a secret contract
of  a staggering spy
from quarters
 in a James Bond
 movie by
   taking a taxi
in  a direct contact
  circling from right to left
 by intelligence operative
officers of unwitting positions
 with passports absconded
in a post-war recrimination
  from the time
of secret pyramid drawing
 on prisms
 of secret moderating papers
in a body of a brutal hit list
from crimes  expanding thousands
with a repast of sentences
in past expectations
of murmurs and rumors
on a canvas now
hidden in a forbidden Kultur
 into a restarting revisionism.

IMPROVISATION#250
TRAFFIC

We see on the t.v. a film
in French about
  child and drug traffic deals
   knowing no details
   of the sleepy victims
by whose whims
their victim lords over them
are some time revealed
 if they are nailed
at the banks of the Thames
with    an identity card
concealed by walls
 or jailed for their crime
without    any thanks
over the judge's bench
as an overlord with power
who gives out magic pills
in this dark time
to those lost by night
on an hourly death march
    paints dozens of children
in a still-life
they can ill afford
\\the violent powder
that shines brightly
in front of the car lights
of shut- in reflections
to abscond     in technicolor
their air conditioned secrets
in the second silent
spell        blinding horror
fleeing from police
and reporters
with the Nice refugees
 filing and filling out
 papers  of regrets
not escaping
furious questions\
by the roaring car engines
without the thrill
of being recognized
at first sight.

IMPROVISATION#249
LIBERATION

An answer is coming
    Eluard
from a child's voice
on a swing
  that fascism
  cannot last
  the spring
as a bird flew past
in the air
 beyond our glare,
our city walls
   out lined
of graffiti
 speak no more
of detention\
   or S.S. footsteps
  in the night
 soon it will be
an afternoon of liberation
  and first light.

IMPROVISATION#248
PHILOSOPHIZING

There you are
under the shooting stars
philosophizing with Socrates
or Plato or Montaigne,
it's starting to snow and rain
on the Alps
 near your loved ones
 in Grenoble
 it's time
to recognize who you are
before there is a collapse
of the avalanche
as you play sax
 among the birds
in this setting of cold
go home and nobly relax
enfold yourself,
in dream landscapes
of color field art
 by closing the drapes
at the Golden Dome
pulling down
the stage of a reflective act
of your theater curtain
with its art deco in perspective,
tomorrow is another day
for drawing or play writing
with your characters in words
or when geometrically shaping
your next painting
or doing a  reflective sculpture
playing riffs in the poetry
from the culture
of jazz for certain.

IMPROVISATION# 247
CERAMICS

 You want to mix
     a field of colors
 into a shopping cart
 inside a clay pot
 from a potter's wheel
in funk or junk ceramic
take my advice bz
 do not skate today
 on thin ice
it's the fifteenth of
 February
 stick to your poetry
than with  your pottery
in any Jungian fury
 to make the art  world
annoyed
post- Anna Freud
better stick with what
 you know rather
than in your fathers
  neo Deco studio
before it's too late
for a color field explosion
outside Helen Frankenthaler's
Big Apple    gallery gate.

IMPROVISATION#246
IN SOHO

Knowing about
the loose extension
    between the use
of line and design
 for decoration
  and art
I was  taken
to Soho
to view geometric walls
of newly acquainted
illustrated anthologies
  of the fin-de-siecle
from erratas and a strata
  of  pop  sickles
to hammer out slam poetry
upon painted eccentric quilts,
woodblocks
  to share quaint mosaics
in a bizarre shape
without guilt behind
our bric-a brac backs
 amid embroidery discs
wanting to stop the clocks
going in contradictions
all ready  bent and fainting
 from my own science
   and seance of fictions
  along prisms of the unorthodox
to represent modernity
 in the floral paper school
of micro , horoscopes
and drapes
to review  pattern painting
 from London  to the techniques
   in the fraternity of hijacks
by hearing an old recording
 of Frank Sinatra
in the cool Manhattan air.

IMPROVISATION#245
INTELLIGENCE

Searching
   for that clue
  that makes you
 tick
with a certain
entertainment value
  with a secret thorn inside
 your well packaged suit
with your power
   and weight
   in your lapel
 your enemy has put in
 a 24/ 7 tape
 capped by a James Bond
third degree cocktail
device that makes you think/ thrice
that has a frozen  microphone
inside the clip and clasp
of your asp on your tie dye
we know who yo are
we watch you
in the college library
  corridors of power
professor Dr. Simon Legree,
in a process of your daily shtick
   of going before the cameras
of the Apparatchiks
with your former mentor
the robotic    Dick Tracy
driving everybody crazy
acting like a reacting little god
    with your fans and assassins
dressed up in a St. Louis outfit
in snow white skins
  with your paper clip bomb
and crisp assignment
  you think is so important
    yet you are impotent
acting like a good sport
though you played
 CIA ,KGB, or STASI
men as women
 or  former Nazi officers
paper shuffling in your pants
 on German T.V. re-runs
of romance
with your fake walking stick
hacking in your computer
behind your ex's back
  expecting anything
  to make you proud
   even your own crowd
of P.H.D's
 happy go lucky
in the so called gimmick
  dept. of the state in mind
intelligence agency
and community
 with  pride into an explosion
   forsaking the pricks
or what life in hallways
is left to take your chance
for isn't life only performance
    art, doing your part
by always fooling others
 of your  sick conscience
 thinking in your silence
  before others
in an intelligence agency's
or community's field
    operations
 you have the key
and fountain of youth
directions down at the Keys
 you received from
the Dixie Chicks
to open the  fountain
before your alleged knees
 of knowledge allegedly
under oath,
at the magic mountain
to quoth Brutus
having met Caesar
  or the Czar
  commissar
with the old Russian
 German spy Tsarina
with Rasputin
on the board of directors
for the new world order
in a time without sin
an actor's replacements
no one is indispensable
or honorable
with discipline
or able to play his/her part
facing a time without
  borders being borderline
and forgetting your pills
for dramatic stills
before a soap operatic day.

IMPROVISATION# 244
WITH AN ARTIST

With an artist,
poet, philosopher,
and playwrite
who constantly slays
the golden calf
 and then presents
 his present
 with the past
 and laughs at his critics
whom rumor has it
 have no sense of humor
 nor expect everything
to suddenly appear
  out of nowhere;
 forget the media,
see in your literary
  Encyclopedia:
Edward Lear.

IMPROVISATION#243
WHEN A POET SPEAKS

When a poet
or artist draws us in
on canvas
or speaks in outlines
     under  cover
  in  profiled times
of shadows
 in its eccentric settings
    dreams in alarms
     tracks us down
   from a network of access
  in a metaphoric process
  of a  geometric charming
   us in
 oversight.

IMPROVISATION#242
IN THE NIGHT SHADE

In the night shade
    asking nothing
  of being in the know
 of artistic shadows
  making waves,
  just compare a color
    field canvas in the process
  from the vibrations
of red abstraction
 in drawing of a jar
  from the spaces
  of derangement
  called pop art
from the estrangement
in the "happenings"
  of  the Sixties
entertainment.
 

IMPROVISATION#241
ART IS NEVER WRONG

Art is never wronged
or wrong
 it is  partly subjective
older than the calling
 card in time
of object'd-art
with no accountability
   as from Yves Klein
  from an orange avant-garde
  sponged  from a movement
in a color field from
under the legs
on the spine of canvas
  of Paris happenings
   as critics confessed
  to artistic things
among the Sixties
        on gold leaf strings
  in a patent of indigo
  from our surroundings
from the vanguard
of an ego's unbelief.

IMPROVISATION# 240
AIRPORT OUT OF MIND

They said
   over the intercom to land
  in Cincinatti
     go on the ramp
 check your passport
   and stamp without spam
as you head
      for the Rocky Mountains
to the port of San Francisco
 in shipping a container
   by way of Chicago
   that  your suitcase
  in your retainer
by way of an extra
 experience
     to be absorbed
 into your poet's
     diary tightly bound
with personal cargo
  when there is a reaction
 to your superego
in the underground
of satisfaction.


   

IMPROVISATION# 239
HANGING OUT

Hanging out
    as a Beat poet
 in a justice
by curiosity
  with an intense
   sensitivity in the modernist
 museum
    at a first light
  phenomenon
 by you showing me
 a first peek at
       Russian and Greek
 sleek icons
drawing  in the balance
 pressed by turning
    out of a crusty critic
on a trip wire of intelligence
 in the emergence
       to make a trust worthy
from  the  presence
 of perplexing primed here
over an index of things
 leaking a deflection
into mechanisms
    of wonder and sensitivity
of  several centuries
 at artistic evidence
transfixed under the prism
 cover from an interior outing
 into a convergence
at the audacious influence
   of a resigned punctuation
 and signature and signed
  in a Kultur
that is passing.

IMPROVISATION#238
ON FRENCH POSTER ART

If from the start
   in Cubism
    from prisms
of surrealism
into poster art
 and neo- Realism
by Albert Glaziers
my staring at
  "The Bathers"
at my satisfaction
  at Jean Metzinger's
''Tea Time''
at noon
 in my attraction
or in the graffiti
of Jean Buffet's
cartoons.




 

IMPROVISATION #237
WITH MY MOBILES

With my mobiles
   at my right arm
 of my recent  sculpture
   aware  of what
 is decently fundamental
  to chip away
  every day at stone
     in my direction
  of mobility
  extra! extra!
without any chance
of any extravagance
  in  high culture
  of past nobility
  thinking of Michelangelo
     and his shadowy angels
in the fine art's vibrato
     today in his footprints
of the snow.

IMPROVISATION# 236
A BOY SEEKS NEO REALISM

I would arrive
on my bicycle at noon
 to the Symphony theater
off Massachusetts Avenue
  seeking a neo realist
film or two
buttoning down my collar
to put up my feet and relax
when it was only
two dollars and a tax
to view Fellini's "La Strada''
  or Pasolini's "Teorema"
after having my luncheon meal
   of  veal,cheese and  spaghetti
 at the Newbury Steak house
   with my aunt and uncle
after my violin lesson
with these two musical scholars
on  251 Commonwealth Ave.
 across the street
    here at the matinee cinema
it was a  something else
 for an emerging Beat.
 

IMPROVISATION #235
SPEECHLESS

In the "Virgin Spring"
  of Bergman
you shape
our undeniable   emotion
 that overtakes the tape
of our adolescence
  and rapes us
 in all existential sequences
of a  recurrent scene
of filmed
 innocence.

IMPROVISATION #234
SAW YOU, TREVOR

Saw you
Trevor Winkfield
through your color
field paintings
at the Boston Institute
of Contemporary Art
saw through you
on a Sunday
near the Harvard newsstand
where they sell
your little bardic magazine
"Julliard"
saw to read about you
with a contradictory halo
in a history in essays
a deeply thinking art writer
about Raymond Roussel
Ashberry, Schwitters,
Schuyler,Fagin,Vermeer
Bacon, Jasper Johns
Harry Mathews,Zavatsky,
and calibrated, celebrated
Duchamps,
saw and met
and departed with you
reaching at your tableaux
at your day bed bench
angling with illustrations
or a recreation of poetic
and academic pens
at the French Cartoonist
of the Fin -de Siecle
Christophe  in his
La Famille Fenouillard
or your invitation
for your Boston showing
of ''April or May"
or "Depraved Bumpkins''
with your instructions
of your "Rice Bomb"
of advice of
declaration and decoration
as a connoisseur and professor
through your alchemical
boasting though the years
in a geographic veneer
of mystical eccentricity
of topsy- turvy
paintings under the cloth
and your prose poetry name
disclosed my favorite
"As Moth to a Flame."

IMPROVISATION #233
PROCLAMATION


Hinting more days
 of winter
  the groundhog
 in the underground
 by bog and in silence
  comes out
 like a Beat poet
after a slog of winter snow
goes up to the hinterland
and country hill
in the rucksack of meadow
shouting out\side
words we not know
in tongues of
  the groundhog
who decides  to  head  back inside
       from his  shadow  to proclaim
to the media
it is the sunlight
for more days of the season
  for  Puxsatawney Phil
in  Pennsylvania.

IMPROVISATION #232
INSIDE US

Inside us
   we remember
on cold February days
  the painting of old
De Greuzer's dead bird
 ''A Girl with a Canary''
going in the snow
 carrying bread and water
even after a long sleep
we keep our word
 in our country refrains
 with promises to the sparrow
in need
over the homely hedges where
soon a varying of contrary
 red roses will abide in beds
will grow across the gates
 over the   back roads
 and narrow lanes
 now  white flakes
cover  over ledges
with a shadowy latitude
after the night
   knowing a thaw
will change us in a sunrise
 into  an attitude of giving
and a new law for a bride
     and groom
not hiding in forgiving
will not estrange us
in any gloom
 for the wind from our room
will whisper as we shake off
  our morning fear
that we have forgotten
 to care and share
is  only part of our original sin
knowing in our beatitude
we may
 love in a reborn soul, again
knowing the sun
is above us even in the rain
    as the winds are blowing
that the spring  draws near
whom the poet  in refrain
 John Donne knew
that the bell will toll\
as the spirit is clear
His Word will remain.

IMPROVISATION #231
A CHILL PILL

A chill pill
  is needed  the press says
 so admit it
 for the time is filled
  with fear
 we are aware
but we won't submit
that we are there
as a poet\
   does not scare
us off with medication
 but  we choose meditation
  or mediation
 in our sphere
to express  and deposit
our love
that we are not  yet there
but to fulfill our part
 we choose not carry a sign
  "Beware,"
or better still
 will you be my Valentine.