adroit fingers

coax music from ivory keys

admonishing wrong notes in the sheet music

with a quick flick of delectable hands and a pen

even when tremulous, those immaculate fingers

never waver nor defile the ivory keys

the piano was an inexhaustable shrine, a pasture

for the starved and fervent

a stately trough of unfathomable wonders

to incense and to mollify

the august pinnacle of civilization

in their own blithe words

and in mine

adamantly pleasing and piquing

enveloping in lurid rapture

forget about the slander, the libels

and reach your zenith point

conviction that those ivory keys may leave you

but the music will always remain

The air, thick with sweat, was churned relentlessly by the multitude of outstretched hands. I'm not sure if the heat in that venue burned from our bodies or the electrifying waves of sound igniting our souls and setting every hair on end. There, we had no interest in trifling questions or caution of strangers. There, we as a unit all shared the same heart beat, the one the bass, pounding in our chests, gave us.

There is something to be said about the music of our youths. The stuff of epics that we will forever hold on to because we not only know what it sounded like, or what it looked like being performed, but we know how it feels. And a feeling is something one can never forget. Music, our surrogate lover, gave us the one thing that we had never received from another person. Perhaps it was recognition, empathy, comfort, or a sense of community. You knew that when you, short of breath and on unsteady legs, raised your lighter above your head, you would not be alone in doing so. And when the night was over, and we stumbled out into the cold, squalid streets to make our ways back to both our cars and reality, we all left with more than just crumpled concert tickets. We had a secret now. A secret one night affair we had shared with an enticing mistress or paramour. No one would know about the impact this lover unleashed on us, or what exactly we partook in together except for us. And we would never forget the way it felt.

Bone fingers came to rest on strings made of reflected sunlight, slowly plucking with echoing sound. Then another hand gripped a bow made of a horse’s trailing afterthought, and string met string in rising pitch and cleaved notes. The thinnest string cried in protest, and the bravest string, the one on the opposite end, the thickest of them all cried out for the thin one to hold on, that they could make it through this one song. The thin one continued to be played, pulling the song together with high harmony and gently leading the path, still crying for the pain of the sharps and the bluntness of flats and crying for the perfectly tuned spaces between the strings, with perfect fifths. Then the thickest string, the one that should have broke last, broke from the pure beauty and the other strings followed with reckless abandon, shattering the image, leaving a crystallized image of a bitter dream. Then there was only a girl, standing in filtered moonlight, pale hands playing nothing but air, and the sound of a dream that still filled the empty silence.

Just one piece of the crowd

One voice adding to the sound

As a whole together we sway

And we sing in accord a complete array

Each one individually care free

Some blow their cares and their smoke to the breeze

Cigarettes slipped between their fingers

Worries long gone but the smoke still lingers

Dancing along with us are flashing lights

That illuminate the crowd in the night

Separate the crowd into many faces

Show how music can travel to many places

To the band we might just be a city

Just a venue and if so that's a pity

For their lyrics effect so many

Each person in a different way

Lyrics individually guide us

While music wholesticly unites us

With songs like "Tear Away," "Sinner," "Reminded," "I am," "Sermon" and "Bodies" it was an emotional rage-fest which fed into my belief that I was alone in the world. That most people where delusional, self-interested sinners who weren't worth my consideration. Those tunes and lyrics made me question where I put my faith, what I thought of "God." They spoke to my soul in ways that would scare most parents, and certainly scared mine. Back then it was the music that kept me from raging out on everyone around me.

These days, I can still sing most all of the lyrics, but the music doesn't speak to my soul anymore. The lyrics have a different context and impact on me because I have changed. Music, in that sense, has become a way to study the changes in me... Music is an expression of emotion, so it makes sense our tastes reflect our feelings, even on a subconscious level.

|| another_proser ||