a sestina....

[KaliTracy]

another poem from a much (much) earlier time....


Music's many games...
* Not every end is a goal. The end of a
melody is not its goal: however, if the
melody has not reached its end, it would
also not have reached its goal. A parable. *
-- Friedrich Nietzsche



I hate to awaken things when they're asleep,
but the case opened easily. I tried to read
the signs of when this instrument was not asleep.
I couldn't remember if I was asleep
when I believed I would always play
the clarinet. I must have been sleepy
when the melody began -- a lullaby putting to sleep
a restless memory. Can beautiful music
ever die? (Be killed?) This thought changed Music's
true tone, and I couldn't sleep
alone with the that solitary instrument staring. I found a note
to myself, but it was a cruel note

that told me to give up trying. This note
told me I had been asleep
all my years I lived with the notes,
and practiced the rhythms. Later it was hard to explore the notes
although it was never hard for me to read
them, and in time I stopped playing musical notes.
Yet, occasionally I could hear the notes,
and when I did, they screamed for me to play
them just once more. A malicious melody plays
in my mind while the notes
for my language class sit back and laugh. Music
wraps around me, trying to take hold, music

entices gently, trying to swallow me whole. Music
that waits for me to learn the notes.
Waits patiently. But I'll never play the music
like I feel the music
for time has put that need in me to sleep.
I understand music
I can make love to music
(and it to me) taking an old reed
-- softening it up, reading
the confusing page and playing intense music
that claws at my heart. My fingers now fumble. I play
longer than I should. My lungs hurt, my lips give, but I'd play

for hours like I used to if I could. My body can't play
that way anymore. The music
completes its job: it grabs and plays
upon my feelings. Later, as my lover plays
me gently, I hear ebullient musical notes
finally calling --- increasing as they start to play
a game together with iridescent lights. They play
well together and call for me to jump across a steep
chasm into a field of light. Only while asleep
would I dare to leave and play
alone with lights and music.
If I can't take my lover to where music

plays, I can show him how to read
my body, together we play;
just as I use my clarinet reed
to produce undulating sounds, he uses my reed
to communicate a sensuous music
between body and soul. We read
together like an intricate poem. Touching softly, he reads
my body as if elusive notes
were written for him to gather. I note
that together we are a double reed
instrument, an oboe that may never sleep
when the vibrations are so complete. Before I sleep

the last strands of music
whisper through my body. Shivering, I play
the melody one last time, notes
quivering gently, ready
to put me to sleep.



tracy lynn
1986?

[oneighty]

1. My daughter plays the clarinet

I will be watching her real close.

A sestina is a word game. I would not have the patience. Your story is nice.

180

[pinerow]

2. A very interesting and moving piece...

I substitute "poetry" instead of "music" and it reads like the barren period that was the 1980's...Please don't stop writing again...you have much to give...

[KaliTracy]

3. hmmm... I see what you mean. at the time i wrote this I always had

words -- I didn't let them go until later --- never really thought about it, but I kind of let them go for similar reasons -- self-doubt ...