© 2007 Carl Thomas Gladstone
From the belly of the breath machine
with grumbling bellows -
he sits, an organ of the apparatus.
Out blasts the Widor, and with it
all the crust of forty years.
At first the strains of keeping up
quick repetitive refrains
the left hand watches right
playing along.
Lines parallel to prayers
of “be a man” and “take this passion,
I don't want it anymore.”
Then the long drama
a marriage made by best-of-friends,
children born of honest love,
thirty-three years
as bar and measure carry on.
These soft renditions of the proper tune.
But gales come swift,
she too-soon passes,
and the pedals make their carom.
The heavy tones they bear
awaken deep remainders
about to make their grand return
From these buried depths
rise all the breath and spirit
of one who's held too much inside
secrets others wanted to hide
but from which now great melody explodes.
A triumph in the air,
freed from the blocks and pipes
of established men. An art
only complete when heard.
For Gale