Killing with kindness from a dark place
Improvising love forcing a smile on face
Needling white words meant to assure
Greetings heard but not felt not pure
Onyx heart that never skips a beat
From missing spark of love not tenderly
Tears hide behind white winged words
Even narcissist fake kind to be heard
Raping spirits of the blue beautiful ones
Raging you fear it the love of gold sun
Only yesterday gives you any jaded joy
Remembering the good filling a void
Salty as kiss of abyss meant to destroy
Waking pigment from deep slumber,
Accidents by chance do happen:
Tableaus waiting to suddenly appear,
Eager brushstrokes like a wand revealing hues,
Random musing concept to concrete.
Cathartic childlike pleasure of creating,
Optimizing thoughts outside the box.
Leisure becomes a fun experience
Of captivating imaginings out of thin air,
Unleashing wild and latent dreams:
Reverie’s gateway to our world.
Morning imagery born of night’s celestial visions,
Artistic inclinations smooth the way.
Graceful graphics give voice to our dreams
Intensely improvising when words do not suffice,
Celebrating expression in all its lavish ways.
AP: 2nd place 2026
I'm playing a role,
Just part of a whole,
I roll with the flow,
Improvising as I go,
The star of my own show,
Growing an audience,
A claire audient experience,
Chance being the big event,
Getting bent and sent into chaos,
Entertaining an invisible mass,
A real class act in fact,
Tactfully assembled,
Resembling a fool as a tool,
In the school of life learning,
Earning my degree in duality,
An individual making decrees,
With a relationship to the trees,
The breeze flows through my lungs,
My tongue holds the power to devour,
I scour the land for a dollar,
Feeling the collar around my neck,
Checking for the chain again,
Maintaining the best I can,
Remaining true to the plan,
Commanding with intention,
My attention spanning all,
Falling right into place,
Ending the chase for money,
My Honey by my side,
Riding into the sunset,
Deciding the future we get.
Language is writing your program,
Amplifying the thought system,
So you will get lost within them,
Wondering where they stem from,
Underestimating some,
They come in like a wrecking ball,
Calling on you to fall,
Stalling the ambition engine,
Hiding your intuition,
Within the constant flow,
Throwing you off balance,
Dancing with emotions,
Advancing into a commotion,
An ocean of questions arise,
Improvising life on the fly,
Thoughts will try to divide you,
And some will guide you through,
All of them are not true,
Language has defined your view,
A stew of thought will keep you distraught,
Because you were taught to read,
Needing to feed you their greed,
A seed planted deep in your core,
Before your old enough to implore,
The need to acquire more,
Don't explore the reason why,
Just try to fit in and sit down,
Thoughts staring down nouns,
Students pronounce sounds,
On their training grounds.
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/
Serpentine artisan in Eden
Crafting a second creation
A molten piece of idol
By the dexterity
Of word of mouth.
Tongue lures ear
And then à tongue kiss
To the ear, both soulmates
Titillate the neurons of the body
Stir the impulse of all senses
All segued to Judas kiss.
Telepathist tool
Transmuting visions from pluto
To reality on earth.
Forked-tongue town crier
With cymbal and gong
Improvising a dissonance
Of glossolalic tales
To the age of gullible gullivers!
Ear, O hear!
In that gaping cavity
There lies lie lair
The sword of Damocles
Gliding and Churning honey gobs
From its cavity to founts of lies
In every public square.
Like the big lie of Hitler and Goebbels
To the holocaust.
Let not all thy senses,
Emotion, reason, and conscience
Trust her tongue!
Improv is an unscripted comedy form.
Starting with an idea for a sketch,
actors interact with each other,
making up things as they go.
As one person responds to another,
“No, but…” squashes spontaneity,
while “Yes, and…” builds the banter,
propelling witty action forward.
Quick and clever dialogue
promises even more to come.
Then, after finding an apt ending,
a brand-new sketch can begin.
Our lives are also unscripted.
Improvising our existence,
we react to evolving situations
with “Yes, and” for guidance.
Whenever feasible and appropriate,
say “Yes, and” to others and to life,
for enhancing enjoyment
while building community.
And even in our final moments,
we can still say “Yes, and” to death
since there is much more to come
when the new sketch begins.
(First published in Spirit Whispers: Eclectic Writings on Spirituality on Substack, 17 May 2025.)
(Image by Monica Silvestre on Pexels.com.)
The archer shooting his arrow without hesitating,
the musician effortlessly improvising,
the singers seamlessly blending,
the speaker clearly enunciating.
It's not about being lazy or passive
or being forceful or combative.
Nothing unnecessary or artificial,
it's about being spontaneous and natural,
coming from an inner elemental source...
like water finding its course.
You spoke a new language
of rarefied air
guided nonchalantly
through curving channels of brass
Conduits of cool
juries of jazz
floating past soulful valves
harbingers of what will come
Slender fingers
improvising storylines
magistrates of melancholy
bailiffs of bop
Miles from the mainstream
a milestone of
modern modalities
kind of blue
The whistler,
In the moonblossomed,
Evening,
Hums along,
Like a modest star,
His own company,
And melody,
With the golden leaves,
Bound to nothing,
But his own romance,
A drifter of drifters,
A gypsy of gypsies,
He and she,
Is like a great and sweet,
Actress,
With astonishing range,
Improvising,
Waves,
Delighting,
Windkissed flowers,
And unsung holidays,
The whistler,
As he hums along,
The shores of soul,
Dawn, and evenings,
With his holiday presents,
Of melodies,
Windcaressed,
Through the haze,
Is cool as the mallards,
Upon sunset lakes,
A jazz wanderer,
Romancing hems,
And crescents
Reynaldo Casison
Corporeal rivers, endless parks
ballet dancing trees, purple pentair
peaks, veiled vixen valleys where
rhythmic romances abundantly abound.
January Springs sprout forever framed
parades of meticulous major-minor choral
florettes, all tonally transfixed into freedom
Fantasies in A sharp--improvising impending
nurturenaturenaturalneutral karmic
compromises from ALL beings--
We can be better than this moment-
We can be our Now best in this eon
leaving our Future in its proper place.
Hence the phrase, "every NOW and then".
1-12-2022
Nocturnal jazz played on
your body, improvising,
light touches and tastings;
blue moans, soft and
seductive with muted
tones of desire.
Swing rhythm unites two;
blowing red passions,
hot be-bop dances, and
free form movements
that improvise fantasies
with their own beats.
Midnight songs of
ardor released in the
oncoming dawn;
the concert is over
and the players
now sleep, together.
I practice the right thing to do in situations
I teach these practices to children
I preach staying calm and in control
But when my emotions grab my soul's heart
Watch out! Stand back and pray
I think I am ready to show my tolerance and kindness
I should be fully prepared to give them a voice
But when they rile me up, and twist me backwards
All logic and well-thought-out intentions
Fly out the window and slide under a gooseberry bush
So here I go again, improvising.
eager exotic eyelashes
doubly dilly dots and dashes
quixotic crazy slashes
friendly farm ashes
wild window splashes
breakneck barley bashes
goodly gnarly gnashes
heavenly hopeful hashes
slick satin like slashes
meandering and marauding mashes
creative corny clashes
boots improvising as goulashes
eager exotic eyelashes
I'm going to try one more time
To write an intellectual rhyme
Some with complicated words
Most of which I've never heard
Words that cudgel my brain
So I can deliberate and strain
My antediluvian brain
To think from a new perspective
Endeavour to be more selective
Perhaps I should keep improvising
These sesquipedalian words are so misguiding
It would save much more time
To stick (or adhere) to my simple rhyme
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