Jazz improvisation is a favorite vehicle for cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists, while smokin' weed in the lab/ the mind scrambles into a rhythm, thoughts improvising on beat/ fingers rippple over the white and black keys/Stimulated thinking, they call it, a mental jam session where ideas riff in and out of the mind and evolve, where the cortex keeps time with the bass line of curiosity and wonder/You've got to learn your instrument, then you practice, practice, practice man/hit the band stand and cook your ass off/ Charlie Parker high even high in the air/ would practice in the doorway, the gateway, on a bridge like Sonny Rollins did/ the ignition for invention, motivation and just havin' a good time in playin' your horn/Flow, baby flow, movin' on out, cracklin' them jazz notes across the room/ the zone, where pressure bleeds away and enless possibility streams in like sunlight through a wide open window, yeah, improvise jazz flow is not a song you finish, but a doorway you walk through again and again, maybe bumpin' your head on the way out but always in the flow of this thing we call jazz/
Poetic reveal,
the future of open mic;
No dress rehearsal,
it will once again express
the art and soul of this town.
Graveyard fantasy,
the zombies woke up on fire;
Full of pent up rage
aching for a place to roam,
a mindless crowd to devour.
Flamethrower control,
empty heads have been cut off;
Hard floor reopened;
Now the freethinkers are back
to destroy with their improv.
Sudden
undressed rehearsal;
Improv,
such sensual blocking;
Scene erased
rewritten in lipstick,
alternate ending.
A single note
Just starting with a single note.
Drawn to the vibration
Then another, ally, companion.
These two becoming firm friends
As others come to join the fray.
Repeating and finding new meaning,
Never quite knowing their course
Yet their purpose so sure.
Allowing the sound to penetrate
Lighting the fire in the belly
As another note is plucked
From obscurity
In another’s train of thought.
Together yet apart.
Volume and intent mutate
Organically growing to finally,
Eventually and climatically
The air thick filled with fever.
Harmony between the entities
As a hive mind yet each as one.
From single note to final melody grown,
Raw, unrehearsed crescendo
Capturing a moment in time never duplicated.
At first, you compare, like side-by-side
metronome tick and tock from (not) you to you and back.
At second tick, brick-by-brick are towers built in defense
against non-existent foes. A miner's diligence, it takes
to dig beneath in roundabout ways; to catch off guard,
defenses down.
At third tock, through periscopes you peer
submerged in oceans never mapped, gone
off to uninvited parties on battleboats in sailor
hats, avoiding uncalled, unreal, unpassable
muster.
At last (finè) alarm clock sounds
and wakes you up to morning self-esteem -
not generically from factory but naturally old-fashion
style with farmer's soil plus rain and sun,
with omega-3.
Acorn hats of wood
balanced on each fingertip
while giggles spill rich.
Felt tip markers draw the eyes
in this poor man's puppet show.
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