A Poem from behind my Cubicle
"How does one learn improvisation? The only answer is to ask another question: What is stopping us? Spontaneous creation comes from our deepest being and is immaculately and originally ourselves. What we have to express is already with us, is us,the work of creativity is not a matter of making the material come, but of unblocking the obstacles to its natural flow" -- Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch
-The way I feel about improvisation floats off the tip of my tongue and is caught in the ceiling fan.
- Spins round and round until it finally splatters across all the walls in this body I call home. While it congests my chest my right leg extends forward and all at once I am standing on toes too small to bear it
- Head snapping around to where I observe the reflection of a man who no longer apologizes for spontaneous twirling.
-Because who is he not to not spontaneously twirl as he pleases
- The way I feel about improvisation hugs me when the sun goes down at 4:00pm
-Doesn’t let me walk home alone in the cold and the grey
-reminds me that validation is a lone man’s journey down a cavern of propane gas lanterns prepped to explode at the slightest misstep
- puts me on the good foot like James Brown to avoid them
-Eeeeeeases the pain like David Ruffin to remind me of myself
-Keeps my colors unchanged like Whitney Houston in that one song about not having a thing without that one person that one time
-My improv prays like Sam Smith hymnals that God let me out of chains cast in iron and blood makes me free as a child that hasn’t been taught words like, “Weird” or “Different” or “Compare”
- thinks not of the winter, validates only sunshine, knows itself- lends color to blank canvas regardless of collaborators.
-and when the worship has ceased and my body no longer cuts space I tuck my improvisation in my front pocket
-walk around
-feeling it at my fingertips
-like a secret I am always keeping
