The music of Bach

is grief comforting people --


with touching beauty.

radio music is a memory recalled all too clearly. resting in an electric cage we take to the cemetery, a friend’s house, the museum. //

guitar wails, sighs, screams, whispers.
flick of the wrist, exhale of the mind. //

i have a hum i keep to myself
the acoustics of a hollow heart
and a roar for both us heartbreakers. //

anthems for our country and for a shared self-loathing, performer and listener. //

songs for the street and songs for the stage. wells in our throats. they’ll tell you the water of the earth is not the water for drinking. //

why are some sounds just

sad

//

there is a place
there is a place
there is a place for this
and it's secure in my chest
bigger than my heart
more like my soul
there's a place for this
music

Shes standing on my studio stage
Standing singing moonage
daydream,
She´s a daydream
In fake sun spotlights \
She´s a sunset
She blinds me with golden beams
I´ve listened to the song
a hundred times over
But it never sounds quite right without her
Cause the sound of her lips
she controls my entirety
my hands, my face, my hips
and she kisses my scars
She´s better than anything I´ve seen
My lady singing moonage daydream.

Breathe and sing


Words flow out of cherry black lips

like music notes leaping off a conductor’s page


Fingers straddle black and white keys

painting meadows of memory

A raspy voice whispers familiar lyrics to an unfamiliar tune


Smoky rooms smell of sweat and tobacco

Slinky dresses hide shadows of her past

a soulful song echos off of flowered wallpaper, curling at the edges


Her tune, so beautiful, only the few

gathered in the smoky sweat-thick twilight,

hear the secrets woven into its melody


Only a few in her audience

held in a musical trance -

Engulfed in her song; are surrounded by the secrets, the oceans of her past


They stand and sweat as they breathe her breaths

As they brave her battles -

As they hear her solemn moon-lit song


As they stand and sweat all night long

Aimless, still there stands the piano
Its soothing nocturne was heard long ago
Now for many years this house has been silent
Hidden in a hill looking back to old, glamorous days, with longing
The countesses and queens were laughing in that corner
The kings and commanders were making invasion plans in this chamber
The music was ceaseless
People danced rejoicefully
The paintings are no longer wearing a vibrant palette recently
The wooden furniture is groaning
It’s a forgotten place and negligible
As much as the memories were created in
Now it’s called history.

To feel the hum of skin—
a rhythm under flesh,
bleeding ears of melodies
louder than memory.

Flaws fall, resting like
skipped notes on the floor
of silence. I said,
"I’m not a song, not a chorus,
not a chorus, nor the neat refrain
someone can replay.

Yet these songs in my ears—
they take me in, to teach me
how to belong.

I’m not a song, but maybe a lyric—
unfinished, still searching for the
right line. Perhaps in due time, to the
metronome of my heart.