After “Piano Lessons” by Billy Collins,
The piano stands in the darkened room,
hockey player grin daring you to bash it
in the face with Chopin or Liszt.
Instead, you tickle it with jazz
“It Might as Well Be Spring”
feel it tremble under your hand
giggling.
5 comments:
Aiyeee! I'm surprised no one has commented on this. I've read it several times and I quite like it. Especially the first stanza, which has teeth. The rest of the poem has gums but not teeth. If I were you, and I'm not, I'd drop the Billy ref. and the last stanza, and let the 1 stanza sing out as it wants.
The piano stands in the darkened room,
hockey player grin daring you to bash it
in the face with Chopin or Liszt.Yep. That's the poem, right there. Everything else is window dressing.
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for the read. Your comment made me laugh, especially since you've got it backwards--it's the first stanza that's wearing a partial. The second kept all its teeth by virtue of staying out of the hockey arena.
I can't really do musical opems --understand them -- I lack that gene beyond the simplest things...
so come on, gimme something else I can relate to..translation? Do y have your dream machine yet (a mac wasnt it?)
Aisha
Aish... sorry about all these music poems. I don't know what's gotten into me ;-) As for my new computer, alas, Apple's just come out with a new line of cheap computers, so now I'm more conflused than ever. I hope to buy one this spring sometime.
Paula. thanks for the read. I know Rebecca doesn't like me saying it, but this was more an excercize than anything else--just reading come BC and this popped out. Not sure it's really a poem even. Maybe something will come of it, though.
Might change some of the wording to suit myself, but that's normal for writers. I'm not certain the song title in the second stanza is necessary, would make the poem two tercets. Otherwise, I like the concept, the direction and the feel.
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