stillfugue

Brahms brings out the writer in me
as I sit here asking why there is nothing
as beautiful as this guy’s meaty work (well,

this is untrue because there is nothing
more beautiful than whatever of my hundreds
of favorites currently fires the electrons
of the MP3 player at the moment), asking why

I have no words for the spiritual beauty I seek
and touch for mere glancing moments, asking why

I have no clues about how to
write poetry, except that I know you should never
write about writing poetry, so I droop,

conducting the air, asking god
to take me out, to take me
away to where my existence is only

Brahms, Mozart, Ligeti,
Bach, Shostakovich,
(well, there are surely a few others, maybe even
David Foster Wallace or Anne Sexton
or Hemingway!),

and these round, jolly dudes give me pipes
filled with funny tobacco and endless Costco
cake (just the blue icing), visions interrupted

by internal, screaming pleas, “God, please,
take me out,” but the compressed, dilapidated,

empty, vicious, pressed, caked wood yawns
at my spooky stupid whims and tells me to get back
to work on the meaningless numbers that I push

around, with only Brahms saving me from a
hanging from a light pole that has spooky
intimations of a cross and is warmly welcoming.

.