Cecil Taylor/Valery Oisteanu
Cecil Taylor Blues
Soho outdoor performance, 1984
Old cobblestones rattle in symbiosis
The piano shakes slightly under Cecil’s hand
At an outdoor stage, immersing the audience
Culture vultures abound around circling
Procession of simulacra, desperate breathing
Carnivorous flowers blooming,
Kabuki dancer flows with layered shadows
Hollow horses, skeletal but glassy
Sounds of the Mercer street pianissimo
Somnambulically moving, door-to-door
Window-to-window, ascending floor-by-floor
Burning sounds of Soho boho bohemia
Buddha swings to joyous free jazz
Radical riffs exciting minds to sex, drugs & rock-and-roll
His revolutionary rhythms soaring over the dangerous clocks
Prometheus dashes out of the abyss
While the mist falls from nostalgic corals
The Drumming Piano
Duet with Max Roach
for Cecil Taylor
Ocean waves in his fingers
Sky fires in his eyes
Rocks cascading in his hands
A snake drawing slithering in his back pocket
A duet with Max Roach cracking the sound barrier
Baby sharks falling from treetops
Nipping at the heels of the trespassers
Immobility broken by light beams
In the dark corner the shaman
Sings in a high pitch, songs of Africa
Birds have piano keys painted on their wings
They fly out of the painting
Flashing in his memory, devouring it
The shadows have animalistic contours
Jumping from tree to tree
Brushing against the composer
Hunching gracefully over the piano
Like a big question mark
Make Music Cecil Taylor
It is the un-season of unreason
Some will say flippantly
Do not just feel-it, live-it!
And you the audience
Do not just sit there listening
Get up and shake it, move
Tap your feet, snap your fingers
That will unleash accidentaly
A thousand clouds a thousand streams
The beat of the rainwater
Vortex of concentric sounds
Caged plants escape fire escapes
Toys are bleeding in the branches of chance
Till they run out of blood
Lying on the scarred sidewalks of asphalt
Let your hand strike the right key
Staccatos bouncing off the glass ceiling
And the garden is melting under a heavy sky
Make miracles Cecil, make music for sorcerers
Engulfed by the fire of shredded mirrors.