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Improv 1, Week 5

Landscape with Saxophonist by Thylias Moss

The usual is there,
nondescript trees opened like umbrellas,
pessimists always expecting rain,
chickadees whose folding and unfolding wings
suggest the shuffling and reshuffling
of the cardsharp’s deck;
nothing noteworthy except the beginning saxophonist
blowing with the efficacy of wolves addicted to pigs,
blowing down those poorly built houses,
the leaves off the trees, the water in
another direction, the ace of spades
into the ground with the cardsharp’s bad intentions.
The discord and stridency set off landslides
and avalanches; his playing moves the earth,
not lovers who are satisfied too quickly
And by the wrong things.

--------------------------------------
Texts with Poets

The unusual is there,
boys tears drowning the world,
coffins riding on top of Mercedes,
men whose agitation and rumbling in the washer
reminisces grumbling and commotion of
shoes and pillows in a dryer;
everything’s noteworthy except the amateur poet
writing with the passion of daughters by candle light,
writing the words of a blind father,
the headlines off newspapers, the words from
a sideways angle, the improvisation of greats
onto paper with a marksman’s precision.
The syntax and lexicon miss ears, both deaf and hearing,
completely; The words move the world
to upheaval, like lovers unsatisfied with
bamboo, switches, and singular syllable code words.

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