stillfugue

In my crib,
staring at impossible geometries
of a soundboard, now silenced.

The stern, unloving expression
of Mother, her piano dead now,
she, plastered in a wall,
but she is the one,
she gave me Beethoven.
Her concrete face,
the dilapidated memorial,
and the honey and syrup
of the soundboard wood.
She had Beethoven,
giant in her tiny shoulders,
making bigger sound
than you’ll know,
the warmest, entrancing sound.

The unthinkable
inevitability of rhythm,
harmony and tone
smash me brilliant,
terrified orange,
in my crib,
and when in my crib,
the universe is perfection
right in front of me,
right on top of me,
while I struggle
and yearn to reach the hose-blown joy
with a mouth, wide open
in violent surprise,
as joy rockets out of me
in blasts from a furnace
boiling my blood
and the leopard jumps from the roof,
eating the postman for an afternoon snack.

All that I can see,
small world from my crib,
are the fullest waves from my boiler
of bliss, melting the soundboard.
And of course, the glorious horns
of the Seventh, smashing all
of the deceptively-hidden, the bad,
and I am a blistered, babbling balloon
with millions of batons shooting
from tiny pricks in my baby skin

Oh, but my, how I shake,
uncontrollable, unspeakable,
outrageous joy at the perfection
from a man who knew a god,
who knew the most powerful god
man has ever known,
a man who gave me a god,
who showed me god in a
Turkish march,
and I feel the furious happiness
blow out and around me
as I bounce in my crib,
and I think,
“Man, this is good.”

Beethoven, but a temporary impostor,
full of magnificent joy,
and that will be gone soon,
too soon; I’ll be dying,
dying from my diseases again, soon,
but for this moment,
in this genteel, decorative,
flourishing white crib,
“God, this is good.”