i want to write music
Location
I want to write music
but I don’t know how
so I write poetry
or I try…
it bores even me.
little black words on a page.
I’ve tried using rhyme
Syllables keeping time
Personification so the paper
Breathes puffs of air back to the reader
Metaphor doesn’t quite make the cut
As-
oh
that’s simile.
Even if I knew what little sticks with circles
should be drawn
a note here
four there
I still wouldn’t be writing music
Black marks on paper
will never be music
first of all
music has COLOR
music is BRIGHT
music is BOLD
music comes in SHAPES
music comes in SIZES
music ebbs and flows
and dances
and twirls
and spins
and leaps
and sometimes it is soft rain on silken petals and sometimes
it is a heavy avalanche swelling over everything and always
always
always
music
fills
you
up.
I just want to capture it
I want to put it into something tangible
I want to rip the music from my chest and clasp it in my hands against my face and whisper
“I am holding music”
whisper it right into my cupped fingers and know
I want to know that music is
real.
Because somehow if I could put it on a piece of paper and carry it folded in my pocket and know that the warm little wad against my thigh holds all the thoughts and feelings and secrets of the world and take that sheet out and smooth the creases to read it when I’m lonely and if I could keep music like a caged bird
well
I suppose it wouldn’t be music anymore
would it
?
Now I know where poetry started.
And it was not between cupped hands
But out from open palms