|
Michael Keshigian
Language Requirement
In college, he elected jazz
as a language,
dropped French so he could learn
that chops meant
playing the sax like Paul Desmond,
creating a sound,
resembling a golden hue
that only the angels
might duplicate,
carried so high
it might be heaven,
though he could sense
Desmond's fingers
moving with elegance,
ballroom dancing on the keys.
He later learned
that Desmond played
in various modes.
They were not clubs
or bars he could frequent,
though the modes
were most often located in bars.
He found out
that Mel Torme had pipes,
beyond a collection of meerschaum,
an ability to sing songs
and scat like no one heard before
without ever leaving the stage.
Could say he also had chops,
but with singers it was different
because with one set of pipes
he created a timbre all by himself,
a degree of contrast as varied
as timber in the forest.
Conception
Barefoot in white slacks
and her husband's sweater,
she plays the piano most seriously,
bungling Mozart with a grimace
then a grin,
the lamplight
flickered unnoticed upon her fingers.
The field from where her progeny
once thrived has withered,
grown voices and opinions
have fled the confines of the arena
where music,
like a tranquilized tiger,
swerves again.
Her foot presses pedals,
fingernails carelessly flit keys,
and in her womb
a musician is conceived.
The house is no longer empty,
half full with sound,
she nourishes herself.
©2007 by Michael Keshigian
Michael Keshigian is
currently a performing musician and collegiate music educator in Boston.
His poems and short stories have appeared in many national and international
journals of poetry. To date, he has had three books of poetry published
(Translucent View/ Silent Poems, Four-Sep Publications; Dwindling
Knight, BoneWorld Publications), and is a two time Pushcart Prize nominee.
|
