He was engrossed in his performance
in the enthralled silence of the audience
catching the subtlest notes from the instrument
as his supple fingers played with the strings
erupting into the finest blend of ragas
freeing the souls of all the stress
converging his heart into his music
eyes closed as in a transcendental state.

But I could not concentrate.

The face behind the beard and the unkempt hair
was familiar.

From a long distant day
I remember those fingers performed in a different way.

The afternoon I came back from school
and mom told me her monies were missing
and he was the only visitor to her room
waiting in the pretext of meeting me
but after a while leaving hurriedly.

He confessed and the money was recovered
but never again the breached trust.

The audience rose in ovation fingers clapping
my own frigid in remembrance
of another performance.

Susan
with her china-white skin
relaxed
down to lace bra and *******—

“Have you ever heard this?” she asks

… sets the album, drops the needle
in the groove
We wait till bass fills in the room
sending time and silence empty-handed
down a hallway

Susan lights a joint
settles on the bed
ample legs begging apart
She ***** in deeply
impounding clouds  
Head thrown back
Thick glossy hair—
loses gravity
Eyes half-closed, shadow-heavy
clear and blue like piano
The walls are muted trumpet
stutter-hush of cymbal and the snare
Crackling over scratches

We are barely there

Susan exhales
a swirl of fog to a frail moon
Only her sultry voice still holds me tethered

“Have you ever heard anything— like this?”

Miles flows 
around me
Smoking
On the floor of Susan’s room
lying clothed and drunk
Soaked
with chords and wonder

I never hear him coming

Miles takes his time

I recall quite accurately the day that I died
I caught a mirthful conversation between sibling
and parent on how ugly I was
It was in April around two o'clock on a Saturday
Other children were playing
I chose to stay upstairs , confined to my bed
That very day the music claimed my head
It filtered the good and the bad
The sad turns to song
'The wrong' settled in my fingers
Digits struck strings , crimson melody left the body
The hate trapped in sound mercifully went away
It continues to do so to this very day* ..

He squeezed his voice out of the throat  
an old Dreadnought guitar
He bared his soul to anyone
who would listen to his psalms;
purging the torn an anxious silence within,
surrendering an unspoken heart in a song

Some days you feel
like you live too long
Watching the recurrent tides
recede and grow low
This life, such an unplanned journey,
given to lose what’s been lost once more

How many times
must a heart be broken?
To realize a heart heavy
won’t stop beating strong
Steal away the broken inside
these flesh forsaken walls;
breathe one’s last bated breath
in the peace of a song

Sometimes life falls
w a a a y y y y short of expectations
Though passing time
may assuage evanescent dreams,
there is a stillness that floods the moment
awakening a motherless child in a soul

Fate befallen a wordless silence
in the aftermath of finally letting go
Fingertips no longer calloused
Dreadnought wood dusty gone cold
Melancholy madness echoes unrequited

A lonely bird without a song ...


* September 2016 © H.  Rivers*
              all rights reserved