A Night with Chopin and Liszt
I don’t remember the name of the soloist
Though it possibly could have been the Latin word
For glowing hands, radiant fingers, as we heard
A performance by a maestro, not to be missed
Nocturnes, mazurkas, impossible to resist
Even the dour but poignant Funeral March, the third
Movement of Sonata Number two. Awe deferred
To this choice interpreter of Chopin and Liszt.
The entire auditorium was bathed in light
When he was done, and sheer exhilaration swept
Every last one of us out into the warm night.
Floating as much as strolling, we gleefully kept
Reliving the performance, faces blissful, bright
Enough to match the headlamps, neon, till we slept.
UNCLE ED
He stood atop the garage,
aluminum wings strapped to both arms.
He flapped furiously,
cocked his head skyward.
He took three steps and…
Blue knows another dog has been here. A
yellow trail stains the snow. More than
urine, it’s a message in a bottle to another
mutt out there: I’ve been by, sniff here,
leave a reply. No liquid in him but he tries
to respond. Maybe the act of peeing is an
end in itself.
Meanwhile, what’s this in the snowbank.
Looks like feet, looks like a chest,
and what are these
strange wing-like attachments
and is that a head crowned in ice?
Yes, it’s the body of a flying squirrel.
I jerk Blue away.
My head is filled with my father’s stories
of his half-brother Ed, the inventor.
When I see smoke, I think of the time
Ed set fire to the parlor rug
in a failed chemistry experiment.
And a hole in the ground
reminds of his Mighty Mole Machine…
there’s even blueprints
in a trunk in the attic.
Even the piss of dogs…
didn’t he once invent a man-dog language.
And as for snowbanks and dead squirrels…
I can just picture Ed testing out
his motorized coffin with after-life after-burners.
He stood atop the garage, aluminum wings
strapped to both arms. He flapped furiously,
cocked his arms skyward.
He took three steps and…my father that is…
grabbed his half-brother by the shoulder,
yelled, “Get down from here you idiot!”
I just want you to know
I never intended this to be a poem
about a man I never met,
only knew second hand.
Which reminds me of the clock
that crazy man created
with two hour hands,
three minute hands,
and no second hand.
He said it was the clock time turned to
when it needed to know the time.
I half expect to find Ed’s body
in the driveway
where he crashed down to earth
so many years ago
but I’m assured he’s in his casket in St Mary’s…
which is odd because he was buried
in Bellevue Gardens.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.
Pegasus 