IMPROVISATION #8
Hanging on threads
by staying in your pocket
poetry of your own melody
stealing no one notes
from your bloody skirmish
in the St. Francis hotel alley
all over a cheap phone
as the guy zeros in
with a battered stick
getting the better of it
protecting my sax
like a newborn
to again play on the corner
putting out
my adolescent hand
for some bread
without any tobacco stain
after the psychotic rumble
of a sick man
with a gloomy visage
hides in the bushes,
the insoluble tenor sounds
by St.Frank’s waterfront
as city bustling tourists
ready to a listen to a kid
even in a mid summer’s noon
I sing out my poem
beating out my jazzy
sentences until the cop
starts to question
my summer school absence
telling them music
is on my vocation’s
vacation when my teacher
walks by and tells the cop
in the best King’s English
this is my project for him,
to take it up with the principal
or take a walk,
and gets me a gig to play
onrushing loud trains
of improvisation #8
and he accompanies me home
in the right shelter
along with the right papers
to serve the club manager
and to stay out all night.