Sunday, December 30, 2012

Initially NO


Time before language

Memories of when
I was in a pram
Being pushed along
Pathways that had
That signature
Which doesn’t articulate
Any more than I was
Able to say words
Back then, while in the pram
Being pushed down
Past sign posts
That haven’t changed
For over thirty years.
Something about them
Has remained
And I am spell bound
Looking at a time
Before words
Were something to me
Within the babble
Of various noises.
Something says that I
Once lived at this place
But I can’t say
What that is.
Maybe the curving paths,
Maybe the type of trees,
Maybe the atmosphere,
Maybe the earth’s beat;
But I can’t say
Exactly what that is
Except in gibberish.


Dr Seuss memories…
My Dad reading
The same old pages
Of rhyming and rhyming
Words and pictures
That sent us sleeping.
The endless repetitions!
He must’ve found it boring,
When we would ask again
For the same old book
For him to read us
Well then, he’d say, okay then
And take a look
And never make a fuss.


Pianoforte
It is said piano is a percussion instrument,
As inside the hammer hit the strings…
My memories of pianos are of when young I
Spent a year playing the same piece
Of music for my perfectionist piano teacher
In order to enter competitions and win.
I didn’t have perfect pitch
Like my brother, who played Percy Granger’s
‘Gollywog’s cake walk,’ without fear
He was making raciest music.
I would perdure the peregrination
From one town to another
In search of competitions where
My brother, the prodigy, would perform.
I would also play piano there
And practice per diem, but not ad nausium.
My persistence on the piano keys didn’t pay off
Though. I was more into painting.
I once saw a painted piano
And my mother remarked, ‘How awful,
That paint would ruin the piano’s tone.’
I thought how, instead of plain pink,
I would paint pixies playing other instruments
In a perfume of pigments,
Making the piano less perfunctory.
There was a lot I didn’t see
That was hidden percolating silently
For those who could periscope
The deep waters and unpick the poetry
Of the stave of notes, signs, signatures and lines
Put down by pain-staking composers of the pianoforte.

2 comments:

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  2. Exquisite melodies inside words NO; brilliant and all so touching; you take us back to our childhood sweetnesses
    Go well
    Glenn

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