Poems by Larry Kilman

 

Improvisation

Sonny Rollins, blowing hard,
was interrupted by a car alarm
and picked it up on his saxophone
without missing a beat. Playing solo
in a sculpture garden, he heard
the siren’s call and ran with it.

Even the statues were moved.

Having spent hours on the Williamsburg
playing with traffic, this must have been familiar,
to be accosted by dissonance and taming it,
turning a distressing cacophony
into something beautiful and sensible,
taking what is given, making lemonade.

When the alarm died, he kept it echoing, making it his.

Later, I began to hear a kind of crazy music
in the chirping of the fob to lock the car,
the rising roar of buses as they pulled away,
the chatter of voices, the whine of a saw.
It is the background thrum, the surrounding din,
a mad symphony that never seems to end.

It isn’t often you hear the city relent to the warm reed of human machinery.

I think of Sonny Rollins from time to time
when a dog barks through the night
or a garbage truck grinds through at 3 am
or the teenage kids come home in the dark,
awakening my slumber before an 8 am start,
and mind a little less.

Phases of the Moon

Quarter moon better than full,
A slim reminder of the whole,
Nearly the same washed out blue
Of sky at sunset,
Emerging and  brightening
As the sun sinks golden.
These floating spheres,
Mirrored in our own,
Hardly noticed,
Then open the phone

Columbia Livia

We don’t like them much, dirty little creatures,
and they are quite intimidating when they flap their wings.
Even the crows are cowed.

Surprise them and they go all atwitter
like a dozen decks of riffling cards.
As they make their escape, you’re left somewhat shaky,
thinking of mess and filth and ruined suits.
They are benign until they’re startled. You pay the price.

Round as loaves, revered once,
used as messengers, kept as pets, social in the extreme.
Mostly feral now, though still tied to humans,
they’ve been shot at, poisoned, trapped.
Yet they endure.

In the hierarchy of birds, they have a high seat,
though we think of them as bottom feeders.
They’ve negotiated their city space, chased weaker creatures,
and have come to terms with raptors. They are careful by nature

and wide open to the world, not missing a beat.
There are those who still seek them out and feed them,
as they can be an antidote for loneliness.
For that, and for their resemblance to doves,
they’ve earned an uneasy peace.