The Songstress and the Pianist
Now that coquetry is
transformed into poetry
let the songstress surrender
herself to the pianist.
The pianist, the lyricist of tones
touching black, clicking white
alternating and balancing sonic keys
atop the giant piano.
The songstress devours the pianist
with her eyes, her eyes the color
of dark honey, with their permanent mixture
of temptation and errant danger, and
their sharp intensity that sometimes collapse into
watery majesty….
It is the songstress
that purrs first and stretches in
simultaneous intensity.
The pianist only moans, his magic
already claimed in tones.
The laconic iciness to her,
before the pianist touches the tones,
disappears in the jingle of vibrations,
audible only to the intoned,
even before she opens her mouth.
He starts with her hair,
for he was the low C,
which the masters consider the dividing line
between true basses and bass-baritones.
But he doesn’t end with her delicate toes,
for they are too tonal and he is hesitant about a solo.
As the chorus waits
he terminates his passionate search,
banishing inharmonicity by striking the Middle C,
the piano’s middle ground.
His wounding majesty embracing
the work of art,
the art, the work of the Master Sculptor,
the one who lavishes beauty only on the chosen.
The aroma of feelings, and the aromatic mien
of a possessing passion, lifts the tones to higher decibels
as the songstress’s voice reaches a crescendo,
she brushes her hair to the rising octave,
and playfully bruises her laps as she raises
her head to the Soprano C.
When the rhythm is threatened,
the pianist does not heed,
but the songstress has stopped singing,
she is only humming the last lines in a repetitive encore.
The pianist is seeking the songstress’s enflamed eyes
asking whether she desires instrumental accompaniment,
a cello, a flute or a three-string banjo.
But, in the moment, beyond accompaniments, she’s standing
before stanzas
between stanzas
beyond stanzas
within stanzas
the pianist’s stanzas.
My God, amazing poetry. Aptly captures the angst in the forgotten nation of Somalia. Eerily familiar tone, I feel connected to this poem because I wrote one very much like it a year ago.