I do not want to live like this.
I do not want to be trapped in this place..
On this planet;
In this country;
In this body;
This is not who I am.

I am infinite:
Mass equals energy,
And energy never dies,
Only transfers.
Who am I?
What am I?

Surely not this..
This is not what I intend to be.
I am not merely a [hum]man,
But I am trapped as one,
Oh,

Trapped so tight.
I cry myself to sleep at night.
I wonder how,
And wonder might,
But then I just
close my eyes;
I hear a hum
And see nothing --

I am this,
But where am I?
I hear myself;
I hear my cry;
I ******* tears and dry my eyes;
My body as the vessel prize --
A chariot from skies above.
I wander now,
And wonder of,

But heed me now,
And give me bliss:
A life of free
And fragile kiss.
This is not me;
Me is not it.
Enclosed for now,
I throw a fit.

My life's a rit!
My life's a rit!
Every life,
It is here,
Then quit.
But you are me,
And I am it.
We are here now,
And so it is.

There was nothing ahead
but the blazing red
brazen brake lights watching
for the likes of us,
with somewhere to be
besides the whipping chills
of concrete and ice
spliced into our state,
uniquely white.

Inside, the air
surged the song out
and over our bundled bodies
thermal anomalies
in the amalgamating night.
Music
wrapped and coiled,
covered the lazy silence
like insulation commitment
to keep us safe,
deployed in case of a conversational
head on collision,
curtailed with soft sounds,
in amber lamps
simple.

Your particulate words
freckles in the face of ill
conceived ideas of entitled
Sirs and Madams,
my van Gogh brush
damning them all to hell.

1003

Dying at my music!
Bubble! Bubble!
Hold me till the Octave’s run!
Quick! Burst the Windows!
Ritardando!
Phials left, and the Sun!

When the fragile music dies
you put away your voice,
and with the passion
          of Campion’s songs
still running in our veins
there is another duet,
and so intense its harmony
that only the need for food
brings it to a ritardando.
 
In the dark kitchen
I cut the crusts from brown bread,
making sandwiches, cream-cheesed,
the sliced cucumus sativus
flecked with mint and cress,
and placed on blue plates,
surrounded by olives, grapes
- an apricot apiece.
 
Then for the coda:
(in the bluest of blue bowls)
musk strawberries lounging
on a bed of rubus idaeus.
 
We troop upstairs
with our matching plates,
and I lay the Welsh-woolled rug
on the studio floor.
We place beside them
heavy glasses of mint and honeyed tea,
and eat immediately, hungrily.
 
Later, still aflame
from such music and its crystalled verse,
we lie amidst the studio tea
making sure we are not fiction, but wholly real.
You say, ‘Perhaps raspberry is the new fig’.
and place this fruit between my lips.

The Prelude begins with:

The vibrations,
     Of a cell phone alarm put on snooze.
          Creating a slow start.
The buzz,
     Of a hair dryer.
          Making me speed up.
The deep thump,
     Of feet .
          The accompanying cadence,
               Of creaky floors.
The reeds squeaking,
     Of my bed,
          and the door.
The cymbals slap-slap,
     Of feet
         hitting the floor.

And now the song get’s going with:

The roar,
     Of students on the way to class.
The bright melody,
     Of laughter.
The slow harmony,
     Of inside jokes.
The percussion,
     Of pencils tapping
          and pages turning.
The brass line,
     Of teacher’s voices.
The bass drum,
     Of snores
          In math class.

Now for variations on the theme:

The triple forte,
     Of lunch,
          And final bells.
The frenzied trills,
     Of finishing homework.
The rushed bridge,
     Of practices,
          With the same melody.

And finally the finale:

The decrescendo,
     Of the ride home.
The ritardando,
     Of the walk inside.
The final burst,
     Of sound
          As the day is retold.
The squeak,
     Of the bed
          As I lay down.
The yell,
     Of good night.
The cut-off,
     Of my eyes finally closing.

Your fingers are at first frost bitten,
As you touch me.
But as you move so gracefully,
Heat encompasses the tips.
What a beautiful sound we make,
And with you doing most the work.

Hammers strike with each swift press.
Vibrations of all octaves.
Move through my ivory teeth,
And turn the heads of all.
How we are made for each other.
For without the counter music is not made.

Hear me sing out my love,
And I can feel yours with each touch.
With trills, swells, and ritardando’s,
The noise guides ears to heaven.
For you are the hands that play,
And I the piano by the stairs.

Alas, the infamous ritardando
Where the outrageous and the mild concur
Brittle as the music was, each pulse sang with bliss
As quiet operas performed in our rebellious, shut mouths
Slow love beats with broken chords
and we partake shamelessly
We dance until we confuse stars
with lights on the low ceiling
We can kiss to the sound of cassette tapes rewinding
There is music even in our silence

-c.j.

Con spirito
By days
then weeks
then months they go
Bouncing around in my mind
spiccato
Refrain from hope
Don't trust in those
Markings telling you to go
fast or slow
Allegro or adagio?
Make up your mind and
tell me so
I can come off of the strings
col legno
Pianissimo
to a crescendo
and steal away
in ritardando
Rest.