Poetry

Piano Concerto No.1 “African Wildlife”

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Piano Poem Background

I wrote this during my eight hour practice days when I went all berserk toward my ARCT certification, on top of completing a degree in English and Greek and Roman Studies. Yikes. I don’t play near as much as I should these days. Writing has taken the place as my more serious pursuit. Sadly there exists not enough hours in the day for my writing and photography, let alone those plus piano.

piano keys black and white zebra wildlife Africa savanna travel poem

Piano Concerto No. 1: African Wildlife in a Wild Key

Sagged, plush hippopotamus’

and worn eucalyptus trees of knowledge

shadow a flank of black and white keys.

 

Legato, I touch lightly

the keys too long silent

making grey clouds minuet under fingers

as a savannah reverberates in the parlour.

 

My right hand, counterpoint

to the thematic antelope

crescendos to a fortissimo,

my left hand, a cheetah sounds the coda

and success is celebrated. It savours a motif

as the rest thunder off, the final cadence rebounds, recalling walls.

 

After all

it is only furniture.

 
Fiction

Facades: A Drabble of Self-Perception

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Mask of Facades

The Mask of Facades upon Old Architecture

Mask, an object worn over the face to hide identity beneath.

I wore a mask for years. Who knows how many, I have forgotten. Right now I wear one, even still.

Then it started to peel. Paint does that. Even the most chemical which leaks into your insides behind labels of “for sensitive skin.”

These chemicals only  made me more sensitive. Formed not out of nature but out of a lab.

My eyes leaked from the windows, crying sunlight, when I just wanted rain to dance in.

Whispers flickered shapes across my skin, leaving the impression of wolves about to blow me down.

Soon I kept only straw on the inside. Outside I towered into the sky with walls of brick, and then, the earthquake hit. I rattled and shock, cracked and crumbled. When the clouds rose back into the heavens and the grey danced off upon the wind, I remained, a memory of masks built of material and changing mood.

Today I begin peeling the paint. With hand and hoe. Rock and roll. Faerie dust and book musk.

Have you ever sat on a sidewalk and watched a house, watch you?

It will drain stories out the pipe vents.

What is your mask?

ARR.