Spanish Guitars
A few years ago, in 2011, I went to a concert of young classical guitarists. Just before or after, I don't recall, I saw an exhibition of Picasso's guitars at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC (http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1101).
This poem ensued. This is one of the lost poems I mentioned, recently rediscovered on an archaeological dig.
Spanish Guitars
two weeks pass.
I have seen
two guitars
one of wood,
one of sheet metal.
both were alive,
both were inanimate
both birthed for display,
useful for granting pleasure and
heating up le jus d'creation
products of a tradesman's craft,
animated to pierce my brain and
pleasure me with the realization
that when you see
what I see
When you,
you hear,
What I see
we all perforce speak but one language,
an alphabet of music, art and love
A young,
oh so most beautiful
Croat guitarist girl,
Ana, coaxes an urgency
from her love, the blonde wood,
she takes Piazzola's notes,
as if they were Picasso's thoughts
and set them within so
days later, the resonance plucks
at my temples
Picasso, like a little boy,
collects collaged bits and pieces of
life's stuff most ordinary,
postage stamps, playing cards,
wallpaper, pieces of cardboard,
cutouts from Le Journal,
and with fingers delicate
sticks and glues discrete notes,
individually nothing
but pieces of this and that,
bits and bobs
superimposed on faux woodwork,
presenting an instrument tooled to
conjures up a milonga^,
the sounds of angels dying,
a fandango of trembling tones
a sonnet of sounds,
celebrating human touch
upon animal, strings taut,
feasts both, a banquet,
a triomphe of sounds
that tutors my senses
to hear sheet metal guitars
imprisoned in museum glass
gush sounds of parallel lines
and delicate contrasts,
A duet of animate, inanimate
Virtuosity
All is clarified.
One language.
Many dialects.
Both, Spanish guitars.
^ a milonga has many meanings, but here, refers to a Argentine tango dance party