Steve Dalachinsky

music  -  for Thomas


     i could if i
                   could play
       music  could
                          if i could say
          music  would  this way           that way
               the way      the fingers dance
                   the way   the singer   takes a chance
                           &
                                i    should
                                             if i could  & i would
                  if i could
                                  play  music
                                  say        music
                                                     be
                                                              music





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unmetered music   (for Thomas Chapin)


1. edit

Thomas
tonight the music
speaks for itself
it doesn't know you're gone
it doesn't know anything
it is only an instrument of itself
& the 4 men up there are its channels
i weep for an instance
& am out like flame to a
japanese lantern
gone up & out
my thin frame remains
as reminder of sentient
world

the pain has evaporated
like lantern's skin
& only those who loved you best
& knew you best
will have to endure the ashes

but tonite the music
speaks for itself
not a healing force
but a body of air pushed
thru the mouthes & fingers
of 4 men who didn't know you
& don't yet know you're gone

the music speaks to itself
in long & lazy soliloquies
fast abrupt choruses
& brokenhearted heart busting breaths
& the night expires with applause
& i keep your secret a little longer
inside me
tho i want to tell everyone
but the music speaks for itself
speaks for itself
& speaks for me
as if it already knows you
are gone.



2. cry me a river

i spill onto the floor
like a drink drying  spent & drying
looking clear tho dark
i spill like the range of so many wet evenings
in an el nino year
of refusals & full moons

the night is a table
& i am a plain speaker
when it comes right down to it
& i announce with a vengeance
the sincerity & serenity
of an overanxious drink
damp & delivered
in one pathetic & poetic pour
onto the scuffed & faded plywood floor

& the music speaks
as if it knows you're gone
in a hot room
full of bodies & ribbons
some notes too numerous to consume

this is death's dark hour
oh dare i say it
even say such stupid things

the oblong lantern
has no light to give off
it just sits there in suspension
waiting for the sad soft ballad to end
as the drummer blows another bubble
& the bubble in my wife's dreaming mind
has not yet comprehended that you're gone
& therefore has not yet comprehended it must burst.



                   steve dalachinsky   2 of 2 unmetered music
                                       2-13-98