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.