A place to gather words before they get lost.
Dear Dad,
I'm still listening to the sticks, your rhythmic clicks
on the drum set as I sit on the sofa one floor above you
and I love you
for the man you are, for the music inside that always called me home
for the way you shared a beat and allowed me to find a voice inside a song or poem
Promise me the future
bleak barren or beautiful
whatever's happened in the present or in the past
promise me the future
for #mastoprompt
i am audience
i remind myself calm this restlessness - i am audience - an early arrival - observe in silence
And I study the movements of the woman bare-handedly building a trombone before me: a brass skeleton pulled from a case of felt, metallic mouthpiece sliding into a curved frame, her right hand releasing the valve, as if breath were water, as if there were remembered notes, rippling outward in a river of sound
a trumpet player covers his mouth, laughs at a joke, looks to see if anyone’s watching a percussionist stretches her fingers gently along the skin of the tabla, generating a gentle hum
And I turn my attention to a figure of a man whose left hand is twisting a neck into tune, twanging strings into shape, the fingers on his other plucking a pick along taut steel lines, prime meridians running parallel over a carved-out shape, whispering frequencies across the guitar: the note, if ever lost, has been found
a tenor saxophonist mouths a reed, wanders, wood not yet resonating, a quiet expectation a flutist runs a feather through the body, removing traces in before-performance ritual
And I witness the woman bent over a bass drum, her foot kicking down on the One, she’s fiddling with action on the mechanical contraption, the pedal where her foot will propel the band into forward motion – then she’s done, focusing now, fixing, adjusting, first ride cymbals, and then the hi-hat, and then the snare drum, whose wire mesh bottom echoes in the nearly empty hall like ball bearings cut loose in a tin can town
a sound man, like snake charmer, wrestling wires and cords, connected into mics a pair of soundboard technicians, calling the muse with levers, knobs and widgets
And along comes a man spinning a thin baton between his fingers – mesmerizing; wondering, waiting for something to drop – but he doesn’t ever stop, so lost in the papers before him, the scratched-up music score spilling over sides of an angled stand, his lips mouthing stories of the acts yet to come – he, too, soon, will be an audience of one – threading through the tapestry of each musician, in each moment, where he becomes Arachne, stitching a poem to which all here will be bound
audio: https://sodaphonic.com/audio/1T4ThwNBlsP1VLgl7oR4 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cXEJUwHLao
Sorting These Pieces
It seems …
I’ve been more garbage collector, clanging disposable phrases inside metal containers, than eagle-eyed editor, a word-from-meaning proof-reading spectator, hoping for rare gems hidden inside cracked stone
It seems …
I’ve sunk too many words
in an all-too familiar soil
– finely-tuned compost
in a field seeded for joy –
or maybe I’ve planted
more than I’m able to harvest
with claw hammer and bone,
always an attempt at drafting
a shelter of house
framed out of poem
It seems …
I lean towards giving up notions that a few lines - etched of fire, ashes flown – might spark commotion in another one like me: that every reader, just as writer, first needs to do the art of understanding, alone
It seems …
But not always. Not here. Now.
Attuned to the hum: the dawn song of a morning just begun
Ponder inside the pause, a hesitation, a moment of quiet meditation
for #mastoprompt
Fresh morning cool reminds us of the dichotomy of days: heat is almost always on the way
for #mastoprompt
The day's end's awash in fragrance of flowers,
as we gather here, quiet, letting summer have it say
for #mastoprompt
Fingers in the socket shoots a shock like a rocket like a kick groove in the pocket where there’s nothing left to stop it
For #mastoprompt