Built of Artful Silences

Built out of the light
of a dying day long
passed, that sudden
plangent major chord
in amongst those
maudlin blues minors
and diminished sevenths,

Built out of the remnants
of smoke and spilt drinks,
only quiet and phantom
tastes at the back of the
throat now, so many years
gone,

Built of moments standing
deep into the darkness of
mornings almost ready to
turn again and grow
brighter with us having
never sought the shelter
of sleep, and all the chill
against which we bury
hands deeper inside
slacks made for more
honest work than we
would ever care to
accomplish.

Built of artful silences
and gestures of the hand
from the shadowy realm
near the stage door, of
developing new ways
to make the notes we
don't play count so
very heavy in the end,
invisible connections
brought to sternest
mortar in holding our
observations, blue lights,
wrinkles beside the eye--
all these things intact
and whole and so much
more than the vagrant
sentimental shadow.

Hands to keyboard,
hands to fretboard,
hands to the worn smooth
wood of the stick and
brush, we speak out
our collective dream
in cerulean and sapphire
against the clicking
of glasses,
muted conversation,
these tentative footsteps
towards and away,

But we are not here,
not physical bodies
but liquid dreams no
less potent than those
cooked hot inside the
spoon as it is held above
the lighter's flame.

But...

We are hungers and
illusions made by a
thousand thousand
sweat slick sheets in
the evening's depths,
and we are injected
not with needles but
with notes, trafficked
not with dope sick mules
across the border but
with crude ink stamps
against the inside of
the wrist, proof of
some small payment,
and a two drink
minimum, half ignored
but half immortalized
in that one solitary note,
that one perfect ostinato
that holds firm in the
brain, even after the
deluge of less true,
less perfect improvisation
is done with.

--Inspired by the CD
"The Ground" by the
Tord Gustavsen Trio