Music

Music
by Gideon Burton

The silence of the drying ink, so still,
so mute. It is the opposite of song:
no strings that vibrate, no high notes to spill
along a melody that’s never wrong.
I have in corridors and concert halls
allowed the music’s ballast to lay weight
upon an errant soul. My life, my all,
I would for asking trade it straight
to feel, however shortened, one more chord
of symphony, of chorus clean and strong,
nor can I stay unwell when steeped in song.
     I praise it and in praising I will sing:
     the voice, the patterned music ever rings.

Photo: flickr - CRFish

Post Percussion

Attended a drum concert tonight with two of my sons. It was both very primitive and very civilized. Mesmerizing.

Post Percussion
by Gideon Burton

A phantom hammering, the drumskin white,
residual with heat. The stinging palms,
blood bright. The ringing ears, the sweaty bright
persistence in the air, though resting calm.
The clap and shimmer, mallet, cymbal, bell.
The evening evened, cadenced into time.

Hot tides of sound that burst, recede, and swell.

The clack and friction buzzing up the spine.

One hears the drumming, then one is the drum.

One feels the rush, the rhythm's breaking crunch,
the muscled snap, the surfaces that hum
and shake, compressions tight or loosely bunched.
     So primitive, to beat and bob the head.
     So primal, thunder raised to free the dead.

Photo: flickr - Miguel Sánchz

Vivaldi

Written at the church of St. Martin in the Fields, London, while listening to a Vivaldi cello concerto on May 25, 2001.

Vivaldi

by Gideon Burton

On these crescendos, brushing toward a soft

alignment, something heavy seems to light:

a slight , accusing signal, less than night,

and just as suddenly compelled aloft.

The music, rising, in perfecting fades.

Its blush and color thunders in its rush

toward a last parenthesis of breath.

A death perhaps. Perhaps a shift in clef.

The even ground tugs skyward in the crush

of green ascension, morning heaved in spades

another time for this, another peak,

another supposition given full

disclosure, casual of where it pulls

serrated phrases on us, strongly weak.

Feel free to copy, imitate, remix, or redistribute this poem as long as you give proper acknowledgment of authorship. Photo: flickr - kardboard604