Waiting for a Musical Instrument Repair

This Monday I went to fix my bow, something every string player unfortunately has to do every year. Since the place is so far away I asked to stay in the area until it was finished: two hours. I went to the library but it was going to be opened at 11:30 and I started talking to a homeless girl waiting outside. She was young and very attractive and could have been a model, but with some situation unknown to me she ended this way. I felt great empathy and wanted to give her a few dollars but she asked for nothing and I had nothing smaller than a twenty. Another homeless man came and I became very thirsty from being there for an hour in the sun.

        I got a water from the Bookshop and it was an excellent café and bookstore and spread out my laptop. I got more change for the parking meter. I felt distraught from that situation earlier. She most the time has no where to sleep. They don’t want her in the park across the street and the cops there are fierce; I have heard many complain of cops that harass regular people like for stance one is black, or unusual.  

Homeless people should be sheltered with the necessary things of living and un luxury; but unfortunately low income people seek out those cheap thrills like cell phones, etc. many things that myself and others could live without. Erich Fromm said that the homeless should be sheltered and I am very strongly for that, and hope others in better situation can help others to the simplest forms of life.

A Landscape Painter

The young Sephardic came to paint in the park,
he was long bearded, long hair through the sides of the bald head,
his smile of endless landscape paths, he was there with his brush
by the Miami river beside the long trails of wooden meadows.
On the other side of the park was an insane asylum were no action
was even seen but the lull of days and a questioning silence,
no one came, no one left, no one was out ever in their cruel lawn,
now it is a very tall four star luxury hotel, leaving the crazed on the streets.
Dr.Heinrich Weiss wanted to be like Cezanne, reading
all the impressionistic painters journals that he would quote.
His long brown beard would flow in the breeze in laughter
flowing down the pathways with the trailing wildflowers
yellow and purples, he liked the open meadows, overseeing the
old sailboats on the dilapidated pier that old fisherman called their wives,
the children played, the seagulls cry and the old pelicans sat till sunset
Here that young man came that looked like a grandfather,
with his wild very long black beard, his old blemished painter’s diaries.
He had painted scenes from Buenos Aires where here recently lived,
for a few dollars to passer-by’s as his wife cried for him to get a real job.
He would quote from Gauguin, to Freud, reading, was life,
would past the evenings on the old futon, as his wife cooked his black
beans his rice and yucca, the snapper fish, delicious bread she baked.
There at his house surprisingly were many self-portraits, seemly
having a lifetime of endless paintings to fill a whole room.
When he started never finish in nature done through a photo.
On day coming to my studio with my vast open windows a sunset blazed,
“why don’t you paint this beautiful sunset, go now, do it?”
I replied, “it probably wouldn’t be a gorgeous sunset tomorrow.”
“Sure you can do it, will rise again, you will do a masterpiece.”
The sunset came everything was in a blaze of light for the fruit
trees dim shades everything in a lights sonorous rays…

Young Dead Soldier

The area around the lake is a strange place, for there was living a young man that was homeless and had no family. How he got there was not in the news, but he must have got there probably from Cuba or another South American country? I noticed that there was a young man living in the bushes just behind the pines. I didn’t want to disturb. I wasn’t going there often like I did when I was a teen. In those times there was a flute player that came across from the street with two girls to play flute.
This time I passed through but he wasn’t there, but I noticed there was a red picnic cloth with elaborate fruits and cheeses. Apples, kiwis, grapes, cheddar, mozzarella ball, two breads and very surprisingly a bottle of wine, food was well sealed from insects, but who was this really for, a love affair, or the young man?
Then I heard the young man joined the army. I had heard about this because it was in the news, he had been killed in action. Could he have been better homeless under a tree? Everyone has a choice of where they are going, but to seek a safer economy he died instead of having his life stabilized.

John Cage Collecting Mushrooms

When I was a teen I was lucky to meet John Cage. He died in 1992 so one had to be quick about it. He was in Broward Community College. He preformed his work with the students there, which were regular instruments and found instruments(that one wouldn't consider an instrument). He rehearsed the work twice when he said the performance was fine and played the whole thing. He had a very Zen like attitude to his creations that all the performances were going to be different, but a specific attitude what instruments or situations were going to be used. It was a relief to me that a performance doesn't have to be identical. Most of his later works were done with the I Ching divination, that would show the outcome of the notes, the instruments he would use was asked of the I Ching. He didn't want a self expression, but the notes and instruments would follow a certain way. Then later there was a formal concert were he played his piano composition that were early and not chance works. Then he did a very long reading from one of his books which was a total chance operation from the I Ching. I had earlier taken pictures with him. I let him sign his book, "A Year from Monday." A few years later I went to a concert that they played Martinu orchestra music, Cage music for percussion, and a large work of Earl Brown a friend contemporary of Cage sat beside me in the audience. It was a very memorial concert for many orchestral instruments. A past time cage had was collecting mushrooms, hence the picture.