As She Creates Music Theraputic: Revolutionary ImproVerse Rhyming Haiku

The music which flows/
from her soul knows* what her mind/
can’t articulate.

OR
*shows

Ironic Singles Dance Rock: Revolutionary ImproVerse Haiku

It’s hard going to /
singles’ dances and hearing/

Somebody to Love.

Music’s Power: Revolutionary ImproVerse Haiku

Whether Requiem/
or primary songs, music/
uplifts and strengthens.

Embrace A Strange Place: Revolutionary ImproVerse Prose

A friend was going to a Polynesian island with a man she barely knew and his family. She said “I’m a bit afraid. I’m going to be surrounded by strangers, in a foreign country, with a man I don’t know.”
Since she is from Oklahoma, I reminded her what that state’s native son, Will Rogers, said: “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.”
Then I said:
“When you get to the country, that new place, go, go out onto the beach, or in the woods, or a garden, or even on your balcony. Stand and face the rising or the setting sun, or the stars, or the moon, or the cloudy sky. Face the heavens.
Put your bare feet apart slightly wider than your shoulders. If you’re on the beach, put your feet in the sand, right where the waves spend their last bit of energy, where the seafoam and the wet sand moves beneath your toes and embraces your feet.
Tilt your head back to find the sun or the light or the sky. Feel the air. Close your eyes.
Raise both your arms out sideways, hands toward the light and sky, palms out, fingers spread wide, hands slightly higher than your shoulders, as though you were giving an old friend a huge hug. Breathe deep, in through your mouth and nose, deeply, and feel the vibe, the flow, of the place you are in. Connect, deeply. Open your mouth and OMMMM or YAWP or vocalize in the harmonic you feel.
As you feel the air, the wind, sense the scents, maybe wrap your arms gently but firmly around the Spirit you feel, cradle it, embrace it.
There is a certain spirit, harmonic, note in each place. Each place on earth has a unique feel, a special, sacred note. Just as a musical note sounds different played by trombone, piano, organ, clarinet or harmonica, so is the earth’s song the same, yet different in each place.
You can be jarred by it, because it doesn’t feel like where YOU are from, but if you reach out and embrace it, hear it feel it touch it, introduce yourself to it, and be introduced to it, you will connect with it. When you do, that foreign country, that new place, will become part of you, and you will become part of it. You will not be a stranger in a strange land, but an honored and welcome friend the land hadn’t met yet.
And you’ll understand why the natives are smiling.”

“THAT Guy” Sat Behind Me: Revolutionary ImproVerse Haiku Lament

When I’m attending/
a speech, please let me NOT be/
he who talks throughout.

Hands Of Praise Raised At Home: Revolutionary ImproVerse Haiku

A great benefit /
of home worship is raising/
hands in praise, weeping.

Philly Memories Of A Jazz Lover: Oral History Prose

I was talking to a friend’s father, a resident at a Jewish senior center in Florida, about his life. During our walk, we heard some jazz through the intercom. As we sat in the sun room, he started telling me about his younger days in Philadelphia. These are his words (with “my comments” inserted), as close as I can recall:

Hearing Jazz in Philly
“I remember going to a club off of Walnut, and you had to go downstairs. We were sitting there, and the side door opened and they had a guy by the arm. They walked him out, brought him to the raised stage and took him up the stairs, and they put his hand on the keyboard and left him. And he sat down and started playing. From then on he owned the place. It was George Shearing. THAT was music.
Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, I saw them together and separately. They were amazing.
The guy with a different-shaped horn … “Dizzy Gillespie?” Yeah, the Dizz. There was a block of houses in West Philadelphia, and they tore out the center of the block, and he played there. That was a great sound.
Philadelphia was where that jazz happened, even more than New York. They loved to play there, and they just did it for the love… Oh,what music!
The guy with the handkerchief … “Satchmo!?!” Yeah Satchmo. Louie Armstrong, what a trumpet player! He wasn’t known as a singer, but could he play! And the Dizz … when he played, his neck and cheeks bulged out and he would force those notes out through the front, just willed it out.
And Sarah Vaughan… Beautiful! She could sing. And I would be the only white guy there, 2-3 times a week I’d be at the clubs, and they all knew me because I loved — we all loved — the music. Stan Kenton, I saw him. Benny Goodman. Except for his band, we didn’t dance at these places. They were small … and just made for listening.
They would play in the clubs until closing, or we’d go to the Boyd Theater at 11, until 1 or 2 in the morning. Then they’d come off the stage and we’d talk to them, then we’d all go to some bar or someplace and they’d set up and play until 5 or 6 in the morning. That was just for the love of the music! Now you have all these musicians, they have no talent, they just perform for the money. But back then, you could see it, and feel it, they would just play until the early morning because they loved making that sound! That music!
They would all talk to me, I knew them all. I was the only white guy in the place, but they knew I loved that sound. They don’t play like that for the love anymore. And it’s too bad.”

There Is No Room For Heavenly Peace: Revolutionary ImproVerse Free Verse Poetic Lament

Cleaning house
in service
for those who can’t
or won’t,
I play an old tape.

Hell yeah!
It’s Mahalia
Jackson,
Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

I can’t contain
the torrent of tears
as I clean
even more earnestly
because that’s all I can do now.
Now that I’ve left.
Now that I’ve ripped
lives apart.

This used to be
my city,
my town,
my house,
my family,
my life.

This music brought joy
down the stairs.
I have tapes.
I have videos.

This used to be everything
I lived for.
But now,
I’m cleaning the living room,
and
there is no room.

Giving Up My Seat For The Beat: Revolutionary ImproVerse Rhyming Haiku

When an old lady,/
dressed in pink, wants to groove to/
the beat, give your seat.

Am I Also Guilty? Revolutionary ConTexting Haiku

The two women’s loud/
yacking makes me ask if my/
irreverence disturbs.