On Watching Diana Krall In Rio

The bass player must consider
the music differently.  With
some diffidence he must view
the lyrics, free,
while he is similar to
a train constrained by the tracks
which wade through city,
cut a chasm into the drums,
trill-less in the piano’s grace.
It’s just the bass, footsteps
on a rainy November evening,
church bells on the hour,
coffee brewing before decisions
are made on a foggy morning,
the pace which never wins
the race, yet, like the timing belt
in an automobile, it is impossible
to function without.

Wednesday in Norway

Sunshine.  The being of Norway,
the concept of north and further
to go.  North.  Lemming-like.

And seeking what?  A tor.  Perhaps.
Just hatched, just stretched
into the landscape of escape.

With a Munch scream.  The
alien aspect of a sun circling
like natives of the American
plains — xenophobic to xenophobic.

With a greater weight of history
than this phallic crane ascending
from the ruins of a rejected

economic goal — the American
automobile, sedate, parked,
waiting for a passenger.

Like when we waited
in Oslo, for the subway to
arrive.  And take us.  Further
into incomprehension.

I arrived in Halifax, Canada,
so many years ago, fresh
child from Europe’s war’s

aftermath.  Chess piece.
Twenty moves from end game,
from watching the sun swirl

in a maelstrom sky. And trying
to understand that life
is not about seeking differences.

Time of Day

In the morning                  concrete
a confused seagull                           stray sunlight

lapsed sounds of night                  and
that music which

tactile is a tracery of potential
like words uttered           below the

heartbeats of hearing    with just emotion
to which to cling.

I could elevate the sun                  resuscitate
the minutes adrift like

Manatees, like spiders forever
spinning their webs.  I could

photograph  the arm time  leans in

                in a certain way

as though memory exists
and the future doesn’t      

predict         itself.

Biological Condition

I fail to                  and I fail
to recognize                       the robot in the soup

that digestive which is consumed
like                         lunch on the deck            like

ham and beans                 eggs on the side
breakfast between the pines     on

an image of where this all exists

I fail to                  align

a line.  Abstract and concrete

and unimaginable            like
waves marching in                           on

all these breaths releasing carbon
and lacking                   affirmation.