My Piano is a Lady

The piano is my Lady though she didn’t always kiss me tenderly good night –

Give me the years when together we soared to our heroic Artistic Heights,

Lead my hands along your ivory keys, where we once raged gently through the nights; through the exotic patterns of my mind, your soul sang back.

Now deserted memories—like faded photos of the past, we leaf through

Those wild & ragged scores, yellow with age, creased, crossed, autographs of our bold, evocative aural visions—that probably will never last - (or be known)

Give me those days that convinced me to crucify myself in your wooden arms; upon strung out strings, a lone gull hovering over an ivory sea

Yours, a joyous defeat, you left me exhausted and at times broken and incomplete —

You sang to me harshly lady, sometimes a nail-piercing sweet –

You never complained when I was through, as in despair I’d rest my dripping head on you–on your key-bed or against your breakfront; In silence you’d

Wrap me again, and without a sound I would sleep – sometimes til dawn’s light. —At times I’d awaken in a cold-sweat jolt, in nightmares of the

6-inch needles (instead of His cold-iron nails) that left me bruised, swollen, bandaged but failed. Now today I see dried red drops, smearing the staves of the scores now faded

in their pencil-scribbled halves.

As the day resumes, you would rekindle my fire (such persistent illogical desire) For what purpose my Lady, what life have we together?

My silent Lady, your icy stare ever gazing back at me, while I would lie by your side in hopeless despair (on the carpet nearby)

Won’t you cruelly sing to me?  Must I thrash like a fish around you?

I promise to treat you with tender caresses yet forte resolve.

My sweat-stained bench, sits covered in old lace

beneath a dining room sill – now life has battered & broken our vow –

Your marred finish pocked with the etchings of age (& my heavy hand)

How sad we’re mortal my lady—

Your keys no longer shine so white—

No longer sing so bright, your pitch a muffled tone.

(And yes, you greeted me with silence each night)

Today your voice wavers, in trembling of time & neglect

(I’m sorry that your pins have rusted, your action suspect)

Your enforced silence never broken—your coffinish lid never opened

I no longer caress your ivory skin, or try to start or finish anything –

(On you my girl)

Yet I do mourn your entombment;

And for all the digital capital I still invest (in other tones)

I yearn for our youth and your health again – and a proper

Resurrection of our songs —

I flip through the journals of our long-ago travels – and so it unravels,

The private stories – when you were my betrothed on such a noble trail

We melodiously, harmoniously, even antagonistically roared though our youth, my auburn blazing mane, always brushing your honeyed skin.

Like two athletic lovers wrestling, cavorting on a moonlit (alabaster) beach

                        But now – so remotely out of my reach.

We danced a “Noontime Ballade” once long ago, it roared with the tempo of day, then suddenly finished slow.  —Do you remember?

Those four ballades, ever-scraping at Heights of Passion we only sometimes truly reached.  —Do you remember?

But your silence is golden, as I sadly yet gladly retire: to a lesser love;

A vehicle to drive me on, (a digital imitation that sounds well), but it will never replace ‘the Deep Abyss’ of Your Soul.

“In memory only,” does our secret affair exist —& suddenly flair,

As in covert thoughts, I gaze on you one last time:

This piano was my Lady from our betrothal until death do us part –

And only you sweet aging Lady ever sang, the secret songs of my heart.

End: 8/23/07            c. 2007, michael guy