Lovely Thing Suite: Knots

What a tangle

What a strangling knot to be caught in

To be exiled here

To be stuck in Berlin with Vienna so near

Yet so far from the Emperor’s ear

What a strange and impossible sum

To be old while to still be so young

To have sung before speaking a word

To be heard

To be hailed

Then to fail

To be done

To love but to be so naive

To trust and to be so deceived

To mourn, forlorn, to be torn from you

Scorned for another who suffers no grief

To curse God, seeking lightning

And to still be ignored

To hide in this room, now too rich to afford

To hear armies of creditors bang at the door

Always yelling for more

And to have nothing to sell that could help

Except for the Steinway that sits in the corner

For Arthur it all came too easily

To learn the scales in every key

To play the etudes and the suites

The nocturnes and The Fantaisie

To master the sonatas, minuets, and symphonies

To seek the truth fits and starts

To strike the middle F like it’s an arrow through the heart

To wing the right hand like a dove (the peaceful flutter of a dove)

And with left a violent shove (some moments will demand a shove)

To needle gently yet relentless with a steady foot upon the pedal

And to clench the iron first inside the velvet glove

To learn to whisper and to scream

(The whisper justifies the scream)

To let each yearning finger breathe

(No, nothing lives unless it breathes)

To burn, to worship, to mislead

To pose a question with a pinky on a key

To flee, to fight, to bleed

To float in air

Nothing solid underneath

To rap those heavy knuckles

On the gate to heaven til there’s nothing to

Achieve, but

To go retrieve the length of cable hidden in the cabinet

To metamorphasize the twisted rope unto an alphabet

To lay the lazy C upon the shabby wooden floor to rest

To send the end across the top and bend the C into an S

To curve the tail beneath the S to turn the tangle to a B

To hug the wretched root around the fibers suffocatingly

To wrap again to wrap again to give the coil seven loops

To penetrate the yawning hoop

To tug the loose appendage through

To yank the knot until it’s ready for the job it’s got to do

To toss the braid above the ceiling beam and to affix the noose

To bid adieu to all of you until there’s nothing left to do but

Climb the chair

To cinch the collar

Find the edge

To step into the air