© by Steve King
All
rights reserved
1.
I
sometimes hear so much,
listening
relentlessly,
wrapped
in high solemnity,
gliding
through the grand design
of vast
symphonic harmony;
and
sometimes too
within
the passing threads
of lurid,
jazz-infused improv…
or
lingering in funerary drones,
buzzing
voices lowered
in purest
dread tones;
and
always in a stinging riff of rock and roll:
taut
strings stretching to their ends
to spin a
dance of fleet arpeggios,
stuttering
like broken speech,
balancing
atop that odd backbeat.
And I
have heard the music breed
in small
measuring breaths
when
leaves stir
and
hollow spaces speak
with the
songs of wind,
each
night the winds across the valley,
echoing
some furthest peak.
And from
the very center,
the roar
of fire gods,
their
murderous bass notes,
song
emergent from the core;
a
universe of tones
hardly
random or ill formed;
a
reservoir of nascent sound
in which
all other harmonies abound.
2.
Then,
too, come strange calls
alive to
greet my listening,
wandering
through new discovered streets,
to find a
certain way:
lamplight
to lamplight,
slipping
between shadows,
past
shuttered doors and darkened alleyways;
stepping
deftly
around
children without faces,
there,
amid each rising moan and incantation,
cantatas
of regret
that stir
long in dark places;
lamentations
of desires undone,
abject
songs of silly midnight dares
invoking
quick embrace and needy stares;
last
calls and come-ons to indifferent ears;
even the
measure of caesura
when the
weight of all emptiness
shall
have won…
…as when darkness shutters
every yearning sense,
and arms
hang empty at the sides,
empty…empty…empty again,
surrendering
to the usual absence,
while one
devises painless ways
to make
decent amends,
while all
the old longings intensify;
while the
shadow steals
to fill another
vacant dream
and color
the old rhymes—
the mind
rehearsing different ways
to sing
old songs,
wanting
only the one decent key,
a
constant cadence again in each familiar space,
reminding,
to be sure—
within
the hollowed meter
of each
muted phrase—
of
ancient gladnesses,
and,
looming in the mind’s half-light,
imagined
facades of repose…
3.
So now, within these attic shadows,
folded deep beneath a night,
please to
linger with me here,
listening,
quiet at the last,
waiting
for fled things to reappear;
when
silence shall again retreat,
to fill some
other’s emptiness;
the music
turning as the first,
stillness
yielding in its train,
every
shadow singing out.
And
please to tell me why,
with all
the music
waiting
to be heard,
there
still rings ever clear in memory,
in
singing presence lost only to time,
the
unrelenting tones,
diminuendo,
in lyric
voice that I would gladly claim no more,
chiming
as a solemn chord,
the one
echo I try so to ignore:
the biding murmur of that
distant wave…
breaking slowly on the rising
shoal…
forever set to cast its
falling note…
and sing, relentless, to its
empty shore…
gathering its long-abandoned airs,
to measure me within the hold
of once familiar strains.
4.
And yes,
the way old words lie waiting to be heard again;
the way
old words would once again be said,
the way
old words lie waiting for new song…
as if
they might gently live on,
as if
meaning may yet cling—
all else gone.
All else.
Everything.
5.
That soft
postlude to resonate
across
ensuing days;
always to
replay,
ever to
unfold,
while all
the music else,
so
charmed in each refined reply,
yields,
surely as a cresting tide
called homeward by its distant moon,
slipping
sure away.
A Post
for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
and d’Verse Poets Pub Open Link Night
