The equanimity of your soulful amber eyes

As present in the warm early autumn breeze

As they were in life,

Reassuring with the perspicacity

Of one who truly knew what mattered,

Intolerant of sanctimoniousness

And pretentiousness,

Yet ever sensitive to fragility

And vulnerability.

The sangfroid with which you bathed

This planet could placate

The most irascible of temperaments

Extirpating the negativity

While honing in on the goodness

Of all who crossed your path.

It is mornings like these

That I seek the pabulum

Of your wisdom, and

The incandescence

Of your spirit,

To guide me through my day.

--Caroline Reeves

I am shredding night.

I am always crawling through dreams, through time- through wombs of light, with fingers curled, and back sloped through impossible darkness over desert hills.

In wolf-man posture- spitting lunar phlegm from broken jaws. Moving from, treetops and barren fields out into sun-fueled office buildings- dry and tame. Where C.E.O. level Akhenaten's in golden, sun lapels watch me with dread, while midnight oil burns- and the sun dips again.

On my lunch break, I watch YouTube videos of 22nd-century messiahs sink into battery-acid lakes during American Ninja themed competitions.

They come out real ghosts, leaving smoking skeletons in their place. It can be a real shame.

At home, it's the same.

I kill hours in a panic that there aren't enough hours in a day.

I drink like a real drunk at the clock, in a madness for more, and more- that seems to steady my hands for a time.

I go stumbling through each minute, like crashing through bar doors.

Flagged all over town.

From minute- to- minute news scrolls, at the bottom of TV screens. from wrist watches, from the sky, and from huge, structural timepieces at the center of public squares.

I wait for a ripe moon to go thieving.

For the dark to go over the sky like a robber's mask.

I want then, only to feed over orgies of Pentecostal doom.

To be among heaps of blooded, twitching things in my wake.

When the morning comes-

like a cop to take me in.

And fingerprint shrinking claws.

I crawl out from those dreams then.

From under broken broomsticks and black hats.

My back aching, nursing a splitting skull.

Later, the sun and its branded henchmen find me.

They tell me, once more, that I'm unfit for my position in their company.

--Andrew Chadbourne

Practice 1:

Cramming notes into my head

I slowly imprint chromatic combinations

Internalizing intricate webs of sound

That must become second nature

In order to play freely

I ruminate

Anxious about the looming performance

Where notes will escape

And broadcast on screens

Everywhere

My front brain

Learning, preparing

While behind a curtain

A pain taps along with the rhythm

Reminding me of our friend with a brain tumor

Who called to say he treasures our friendship

A ball hardens in my throat

The two-beat rest gives me time to find my place in the music

Practice 2:

A minor chord lingers

As my dear sister with a terminal illness weakens

The sister who defined the meaning of a sister

Who got me like no one else

Who visited often, plunking herself down on our/her favorite chair

Listening with delight to family updates

Engaged, boisterous, humorous, and compassionate.

My fingers highlight the notes of the melodic passage

That I yearn to play over and over.

Practice 3:

A close friend’s fever cannot be taken down

I call the hospital daily

Fearful of the fine line on which she balances

I pound out chords laden with sharps

I damn the difficult key

My tense fingers phrase the melody much too loud

I draw back while the beat marches on

The tempo thrusting forward

Leaving the moment, now two measures behind.

Practice 4:

Our daughter calls - crying about Black Lives Matter

“I haven’t done enough, I’ve let me friends down.”

My jagged breath whistles against the phone

I remind myself to breathe evenly through the two-handed arpeggio

Preparing to land gracefully on the resolving chord

I am weary of technique and counting notes.

Practice 5:

While memorizing the music’s larger form

Layers rustle behind a curtain of consciousness

Sounds trigger an upset stomach and panic

My brain combats swarms of fear

Locusts in Africa are devouring miles of plants

We have an infestation of a stunning red moth

During a riot my daughter and son must board up their store

My best friend’s daughter dies from an overdose

Muscles tense from frightening news reports

We hide in our houses from the virus

Practice 5:

I tell my children -

“We must be strong, prepare ourselves.”

Forte, Bravura. Marcato.

But then I become unhinged

When a familiar song floats from the stereo

“Moon river, wider than a mile

I’m crossing you in style…”

James Taylor’s plaintive voice, dusted with longing,

Drapes over minor chords

Words find passage through protective layers

And slice through my heart.

I freeze

My eyes fill

My spine contracts

In a millisecond, I break like a rock that has been strategically split

Mourning the loss of our world,

Suffering near and far,

And those gone.

Practice 6:

“You dream maker…you heart breaker…”

Becomes an ear worm

I find myself folding at evidence of beauty

Roses in their prime,

Hung laundry, billowed by circular breezes,

The intricacy of a yellow iris,

Children whiz by on bikes,

Their screams spilling laughter into the rushing wind.

Moved by our magnificent world,

I bathe in the impressionistic colors of a jazz chord

Surrendering to the impulse of improvisation.

Practice 7:

“We’re after the same rainbow’s end

Waitin’ round the bend”…

The soundtrack of our adolescence,

Once played from our parent’s stereo console

Shuttles me into the past

Conjuring vignettes of carefree days

My mind chases the memory of languid comfort.

The world has changed in a sixteenth note’s time

Everything spins and I lose my place

My hands call on muscle memory,

Improvising a rebound

I long for melodies from innocent times

When harmony was simple, asking for nothing more

But years of piano study has placed demanding pieces before me

That must be practiced and practiced with dynamics and skill

I interpret musical stories

As layers surface, dissolve, pass

Or return with their refrains.

The last chords of the piece are clustered with dissonance

I wrap my fingers around smooth, ivory keys

Add a forte, then a pianissimo

Which brings me to the last note.

I have traveled a thousand miles in one song

Where the root of the final chord brings me home.

Patricia King Haddad