still he saws
at the legs of his Steinway
old habits only die hard
so he tickles the ivory
cigarette hanging from his lips
the sounds of falling trees echo in his bedroom
forests he chopped down to find his
way here
upon their bones he paints his notes
thinks of branches that fell
as he tore through their guts
calloused his fingers and
left him with just splinters and
dreams
now
in solitude
he writes his song
maybe someday he'll play it for others
but
unlikely
never convinced that it's finished
never certain that it’s genuine
never confident that he can bare the audience
if they say nothing
it will exasperate him
if they applaud it will remind him
that
they still don't understand
so the sweat drips rhythmically from his brow
melodies of mourning
that will remain hidden
as the trees remain
fallen
he might never share his work
but that he holds it back
is its own music
every note picks a moment but
every bridge becomes a stand-still
"should i cross here?"
he asks himself
"or would i be wisest to go around?"
he knows the wood the beams are made of
and questions their
strength
"if they were so easy to chop down
why should i trust them to hold up?"
but he wonders
“if it was this hard to get here
why should i turn back?"
he finds no answer
perhaps silence is to be
his opus
every pause
a bow of the cello
every worry
a beat of the drum
he’s buried himself with a wall of sound and the
tempo in which he attempts to
claw out
is off time with the other instruments
he sighs
over the remnants of harmonies
cutting himself with a shank carved from crescendos
only a dirge can be his fate
a lumberjack turned piano man
and wrote a song that falls in the forest
-This is the latest revision of this piece. I feel confident that I have trimmed all the "fat", and what is here is the poem that I always wanted. when this was first written, over ten years ago, it was more than three hundred lines long, and incoherent in parts. I believe this more concise version is the superior version.
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