13 Ways of Looking at a Piano
after Wallace Stevens
I
Among twenty drowsy
Musicians,
The only moving thing
Was one hammer of the piano.
II
I was of three minds,
Like ten fingers
Playing on three pianos.
III
The piano clinked in the
Auditorium’s silence.
It was a small part of the
Performance.
IV
A left hand and right hand
Are two.
A left hand, a right hand and a
Piano
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of harmonics
Or the Beauty of glissandos,
The piano sounding
Or the silence after.
VI
Cocktail ice rattled sweaty glasses
blemishing the piano’s top
As bleachy smoke rings signaled
insufferable sorrow.
VII
The poor people of Trenton
Dream of more colorful
sounds,
While the piano
Plays hymns at the gravestones
Of our ancestors.
VIII
I know Bach and Beethoven’s
Complicated tunes;
But I know
The piano knows
What I know, too.
IX
When the piano is out
Of sorts,
I pick up my phone
And call the tuner.
X
At the sound of pianos
Playing out of tune,
All the bards of polyphony
Shout out in dismay.
XI
He rode through New Jersey
In a beat-up Porche.
One time he mistook
A passing car
For a piano and honked.
XII
My ears are humming.
It must be the piano praying.
XIII
“It rained all day
The night I left,
The weather it was dry,”
I plucked my banjo on its strings,
Oh, piano, don’t you cry.
Photo credit: Donald Proffit