Shanibird

her goddess gut laugh

cleared the air

better defining the art being discussed:

Peter’s dots hurled up against the wall

Jon’s masking taped stripes

abstractexpressionist colors

exploding into Eric Satie chords

and all those painters

would gather around Shanibird:

kids waiting for the ice cream

and yes, even the poets and potters

checked out the bop

from her piano

tuned to the flatted fifths:

“Feldman! must you guys always listen to Dylan and the Dead!?”

wow! our heads cleared

considering the voice…

Nancy was right:

there really is jazz to be considered

splendid cosmic candles lighting all around us

why hang onto borders?

last night on the phone

Carmen said “it’s just like we were all kids together,”

and once upon a time in Bisbee,

the merriest pranksters

faces painted

paraded down Brewery Gulch

celebrating April’s fools,

reading equal-house astrology charts

debating Henry Miller, Dante, and Gurdjieff,

whatever blew in through her open window

wherever we all landed:

Shani would serve us the tea

and now her music drifts in from some other window

where she has been resolved,

and we must trust her voice

we always have

why not this time?

here now in this theatre

she has lifted the curtain

leaving us here,

all of us:

this Sister asks us now to move on

to spawn and cultivate our next long shot:

brief candles that we all are!

Delray Beach, FL

December 16, 2012