Music - published in the New Canadian Anthology of Spoken Word, "Mic Check"
There are people who can sing,
as if every morning were the first Sunday.
People born with voices like a holiday
who can hold notes
all the way into the back-then of easy summers.
And it’s this kind of musician
who makes me search for things that I could trade in,
just for the ability to sing along;
but I was born with the wrong gifts--
vocal chords that stretch like city-line limits
I don’t like to sing much in public
so I’ve learned how to keep quiet in the mix.
But lately, I’ve been playing the piano again more often.
And it’s mostly this private kind of awful;
the musical equivalent of those legendary little old ladies
who knit tea cozies for their dogs
and who nod and smile sagely
whenever art history enters the conversation--
even though we all know their favorite Genre of Painting
will always be
Kittens-in-a-Basket-ism.
The kind of Art that seems to say:
“meow meow meow
meow
meow
meow.â€
And this is the kind of easy
that is simple to snicker at in your 20s--
the age of irony so ironic
it has to point itself out as being irony.
But somehow,
despite this disability
I managed to hear the story,
of how, when the musical scales were being standardized in European monasteries,
monks would be lined up in a row.
And starting at the low bass they all sang
as far as they could go in their range,
until they reached the highest note in the scale
each pitch matched to a monk
so that according to this story,
C, or “Do,â€
is really Joe Monk from hundreds of years ago,
singing at his limit,
or rather setting it--
as if just by being yourself you could be perfect.
And there are some lucky souls
who spend their whole lives knowing this kind of bliss;
but my mantra has always been:
please, make fun of me,
I’m insecure, and I like the attention.
So it doesn’t get much more mind blowing than this
But there’s another story,
of babies who cry in key and howl in harmony
to everyday household noise.
Who grow up as Ella Fitzgerald girls and Mozart boys,
cupping the whole mythology of talent
in their ears.
They can sing, and hear, and name any note
perfectly.
And apparently, we are all born with this ability
but, lacking training
we lose it with age.
And even though it has been proven that a perfect ear
is no gage of a musician’s future ability--
there is something like a first Sunday,
in the way we will always be stretching
to the might have been ours,
but now can never be:
like an easy holy night
our faces stark like black and white photographs
so we flirt with echoes to hear our own names shouted back
but even that silence is simple math
when we realize that what we hear as a note
is simply speed,
a string vibrating
doubling in frequency
until our ears reach their limit
and hear one constant pitch,
if we move fast enough
we become music.
But there are some cathedrals whose spires are talent tipped,
while we are the Velvet Elvis of raw-lipped voices
wondering simply if we can be good enough
to make someone happy.
Hoping there is some value in easy softness pressed to its limits,
so when we find something we can give,
we double it
And submit to the holy halls of our love despairs
where walls are gapped
like finger cracked arpeggios
our mouths close around the passfail certainty
that judgment day,
really is a set of scales.
And no matter how well we are hiding
we will be singled out to sing
more tests even in death lining breath after breath in a row
always behind and below, sighing
dear black and white keys
please raise me
to bodies that were born too slow,
but that can double it
And fly quick on tongues that are really capes,
the great escape breaks the last vocal chords
bound to the lord’s prayer, we are not player pianos
moved most by ghostly deeds
we chose the worship of souls
too speedful for their bodies
we chose our own stage sacrificing deities, born perfect
but losing it quickly
in border skipping jubilance
yelling molto meno kittens in baskets!
Assai velvet, and poco tie-dye!
Allegretto and pui vivace
joyful joyful Sunday
--
When the second-to-last monk in the line up was called to sing,
his tongue, teeth,
and that little round thing at the back of his throat,
all grew about four sizes too big.
And he could swear he smelled the blackberry brambles
outside the chapel window fermenting to blood,
and he thought:
Any minute now,
I’m going to have a giggling fit.
But he did sing.
And when it was done, he said:
I’m sorry that wasn’t better.
But I have a whole army of sagely nodding little old ladies
standing behind me,
saying
happiness, is still that voice
walking too briskly to where the river lies
it isn’t time yet for the holiday
but we try