In the Room Where Beethoven Plays...

5.
"The purpose of the artist is to make people aware of their own existence."



When it is late, late in the day
And I sit in the room where Beethoven plays,
Time like a spinning drain whirls
Around me the way a casket would curl.

Bleakness breeds darkness,
Or at least grey skies with nothing amiss.
The only light is reflected off the piano keys,
Dreary days rising like a demon unseen.

Clarity is clear, shone upon by a spotlight near?
But what is real, when men like dogs curb and heel?

A phoenix rising I emerge from the room
Only to find a man immersed in his own gloom.
Dubbing him my desperate denizen
I lead him into the room of Beethoven.
Suddenly he is carried away
By what noises, I cannot say.
The keys like candy cracking
I see Beethoven in his moment of unwrapping.

Alone I am, alone we are.
Alone when here and alone when far.
In filling in empty spaces,
The thought of thought hurls us through many un-traveled places.