Kit Kelen #1424 - piano blues

1424

piano blues

to the memory of Bartolomeo Cristofori

pebbles in a stream

now done

a conjuring of skies

skulls full of spare teeth

police won’t find

I’ve hidden one foot of the well

in the drought

see the daylit stars

all twinkle

to find a tune

and in among the idea shining –

just a few bars –

this little thing I thought up

*

everyone’s getting rid of pianos

they’re breaking them up for firewood

they’re taking them to the tip

clearly a piano’s an embarrassment

who’d be caught with one?

crushed under, dusting?

the ivory, the ebony

hordes of crime stored in the keys

and all those strings – too many!

a piano’s overdone

everyone’s getting rid of pianos

they’re not turning them into rafts

or gardens

they’re not even letting them rot where they are

they’re tossing them over cliffs

will a piano dead-cat bounce?

who doesn’t need some tuning?

they’re burning pianos on a great pyre

stand clear when the strings go – tension released

around which once – Gershwin, Jerry Lee and Little Richard

piano smoke to cure a guitar

perverse the age we’re in

in a graveyard where pianos shift

some nights stuck on the black keys for soul

weeks alone with the white

Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Oscar Petersen

have helped us all from day to dream

Keith Jarrett on a loop

and echoing

now a coffin full of string

they’ve fallen far from concert pitch

but still hold a tune

or the promise

long neglected notes

so sombre shrill

down to the left

where nobody plays

or up in the clouds

dogs hear

Rachmaninoff is typing a memoir

Satie made a little pile in his flat

he died to break your heart  

absinthe!

leapt at it like a madman

the piano drove him to that

that long long smile – a taunt

can’t carry such things to the crossroads

the devil comes to you

it was an attack of the Stravinskies

they turn your lounge into a parlour

soon it will be salon

what when the music stops?

people have been killed by them falling

pianos have been played to death

and still they would not die

swansongs  

and terror

a bomb has been planted in the piano

imagine buying such a thing in parts

same as with your car

everyone’s getting rid of pianos

they’re breaking them up for firewood

they’re taking them to the tip

here’s the romance of the thing

I sleep on the lid of a baby grand

to keep the vampires in

pianolas just for tonnage, for hernia

it’s the whole day golden

Liberace, Chopin, moonlight, Fats

and Chico most of all

Chico points the way

mysteries in timber

did you notice

the piano’s been taken away?

here’s a Jimmy Durante smile

now we can vacuum that corner

see colour the carpet was

Rick Wakeman

and spooky in fugues

Bach’s at home

we’re still inventing

all the children play

on facebook see them every day

and not a note of tragedy

it’s all very matter-of-fact

‘plays well’ or ‘suit beginner’

everyone’s getting rid of pianos

they’re breaking them up for firewood

they’re taking them to the tip

in a few years they’ll be waking up

along with the tribes, tongues, all kinds of creature

say – where did that great axe go?

set a highball up on the 88

slide over to me in the polish

I slip

the past may be over

I don’t care

see all of heaven reflected

ghosts gather nowhere in the night

but here’s a little singalong

in winter a dram

here’s your fire

in a heatwave

fountain and stream

really, if I lived in the desert

I’d take them all in

little tinkle would do for my rain

*

thing I thought up

one foot well hidden

in the drought

pebbles in a stream gone

now a conjuring of skies

skulls full of spare teeth

detectives will never find

and in among the idea shining

look up

see the daylit stars

all twinkling for a tune