there are cars in the street
and music fills the night;
Les Trois Gymnopedies
are vibrating in the air
and I just don't have a care;
I'm going to melt away
even though I was never there;
my thoughts cannot quite finish
I think I might be sick
I'm going to **** myself tonight
at least, I hope,
I wish

"The best memories are like overplayed mixtapes: they lose clarity and detail over time, yet they seem to sound better the older they get."*

We listen to the fourth round of Trois Gymnopedies
on our break from the second round of *******

Our limbs entwined, in part because we like it
partly because we're stuck together by sweat and--

The air is thick with scents foul and fragrant
as furniture music fills the gaps in between

Every breath stalls to anticipate the notes
fingers twitch slightly on the downbeat

Ten minutes ago, we made our own music
Ten minutes ago, we were in perfect harmony

She stares at the ceiling as I stare on her lips
I watch her mumble the lyrics Satie never wrote:

A pack of cigarettes,
a pack of cigarettes
Could you please buy from the store?*

We're taken over by uncontrollable laughter
as uncontrollable as the trembling when we came

She shifts to her side, and my arms are freed
I stand and pick my jeans from the floor

I take my time buttoning up my shirt,
soaking in the view before I run the errand

She lies naked still, as I put a jacket on
I leave on the fifth round of the Gymnopedie

Her wintered sky eyes,
are birds,
a frozen pond,
where fearless children,
challenge the fallen apple,

she is Beethovens forgotten dream,
Beethovens missplaced song,
saties replaced piano key,
Savios hitchiked vision of Toronto,
As she sleeps,
Gymnopedies,
silently creeps from her nostril,
Filling the vents,
with mortals beauty,
and immortalities last breath.

I am one with sensibilities of an adagio. There are few things
I cannot describe with words. A beautiful adagio, I think, is one
of them. Its beauty is ineffable. All are musical poems, but one
is tinged with sorrow. I am thinking of Barber's ADAGIO FOR
STRINGS. PACHELBEL'S CANON, on the other hand,
is gentle and evocative, as is Albioni's adagio. You're sitting on
the sofa holding your sweetheart in your arms listening to
Bach's AIR ON THE G STRING as you give her a sweet kiss
on her neck. You dim the lights. Vivaldi's GUITAR CONCERTO
begins to play followed by Marcello's ADAGIO IN D MINOR
and then you give her another kiss, this one on her lips. It's
getting late, but there's still time to absorb the exquisite PAS DE
DEUX by Tchaikovsky from the NUTCRACKER. Now she
kisses you, not once, but many times. You slip in Beethoven's
MOONLIGHT SONATA, Debussy's CLAIR DE LUNE, Satie's
elegant TROIS GYMNOPEDIES, and Chopin's PRELUDE,
OP. 28, even though they are not adagios, but because they are
etheral. And before you and she go to bed to make love, you listen
to Rodrigo's CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ FOR GUITAR AND ORCHESTRA. No better foreplay exists.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Come, come you avian darlings
You hawks, gulls, wrens and turkey vulchers
Lo! I have a sacred place
Where mountains are made
From unburnt debris longing to be ashes

Come, come you airborne circlers
Wafting up on heat streams unseen
Your kin abide on Jealousy Lane
Thinking you are satisfied.   All your needs met
Without having to scour the ground

Those careless human benefactors, wry and grizzly
Poking fun at the sight
Of so many black shadows
Flies in swarms
Gnats attacking the pitcher’s mound in August in the swamp
Bees.  Caressing the Queen.  Delicate, Loving, Caring
How can we not anthropomorphize the cackle,

They arise out of curiosity
And stay out of satiation
When do the bats revivify the seeds of waste?
Why are there no jackals?
Who built the fence?

That glorious victory mound
Miccosukee burial ground
Green seeded with local grasses
Humbled with railroad trances
We, your dancing gymnopedies
Bow down.
Constant motion
In your service

Thank the wasteful trash purveyors,
May the dump rise high!