It’s hot and sweaty work, making this monster speak,
bruise silence with sounds that -- sometimes --
match sounds inside of me…sometimes.
Sometimes my fingers slip from black to white, fluid and flowing,
like water rock to rock, glistening and wild and out of control.
But mostly it’s hot and sweaty work.
I love it, alone with a monster that reduces me
to tears, lifts beyond words, inflicts greater agony
than anyone outside of me can ever know.
But mostly it’s hot and sweaty work.
Author notes
I'm a short-sighted, stubby-fingered, half-deaf organist who never fails to be amazed and intimitated by the instrument--huge, yet capable of such intimacies of sound. I'm never quite sure which of us is in charge.
A contest entry
- Food for the Famished Mind (NEED MORE ENTRIES!- ENTER!) by Shahrazad.
900 points, ended September 12, 2007, 19 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 11 of 11
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Very nice work and I admire your musical ability! Sometimes even when you're doing something you love, it's hot, sweaty work! Sometimes I sweat bullets writing a poem!
Carolyn
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fab
loved this! Good luck! -
A treat of a read, "been there, done that"! So evocative. Sadly the only keyboard I play now is the PC variety and I don't make music on it. Thanks for the jolly read.
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This is great! I've heard the organ played both ways; by someone who is master of it, and by someone who is mastered by it. I appreciate what you're saying.
I'm a cantor on Sundays at my church, btw.
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Love it but am going to have to tell you I took it for a metaphor of writing poetry--an excellent poem whether an Ars Poetica or writing about playing an organ.
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I learned long ago that when someone read a metaphor in a poem, to be pleased and accept it, whether I "intended" it or not--there's a lot going on in poets' minds that not even they are aware of when they write.
Thanks for the reading and the thoughtful response.
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At first a saw a keyboard,
perhaps a grand piano,
but the "hot and sweaty"
made me wonder,
surely not electronic keyboard.
Much larger, more magnificent,
a challenge to the "player."
Thank you for the confirmation
in your notes!
Aesthete
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So original! I loved the whole concept of you not being quite sure as to who was more in control: you are the organ. Thank you for entering it in this contest. I do like the title- applause for thee
Just a thought- If you hadn't have mentioned the bit in your authors notes I wouldn't have known what the poem was about at all, and I don't know if you wanted to make that more clear to the reader or if you like being more vague.
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My first impulse was to title it "On Being an Organist" but that sounded to blunt. Perhaps "Paying...or Being Played: On Being an Organist"? I didn't want the poem itself to spell things out too easily, especially with only ten lines.
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