LatinosUSA

After Bach

Hearing Bach’s Chaconne
embellished in such a way
that emotions become flowers
one buys for a first date
or for a gravestone
named after someone you loved,
and the mathematical precision
starts to get sloppy
like a drunk kiss
on New Year’s Eve,
leaving Bach’s wife still
dead and buried
while he was away.

~~

Where Death Isn’t Silence

Brahms makes me miss
how easy hangovers used to be
fixed by a greasy burger
and a medium diet soda,
while Bach helps me hear
a future, where death isn’t
silence, and Vivaldi (born
over 300 years ago)
is a good reason to imagine
sipping some expensive whisky
(or at least one bottled in glass
instead of plastic),
savoring the taste
as much as the music.

~~

Another Existential Drunk

I’ve been getting drunk
more from Bach lately
than Seagram’s whisky,
and the hangover
still involves a headache,
but because of the existential dread
from listening to a dead man
tell me how he feels,
while also knowing too much
of his music has been lost.

~~

A Hangover Concerto

Whereas Bach could make a violin
cry over a dead wife or pray to God,
Sibelius makes it sound more
like someone pacing
back and forth
outside a liquor store
thirty minutes before it opens.
But even if it’s simpler to imagine
Bach as just another skeleton
hoping no one plays his ribs,
he’s better company
than a plastic bottle of whisky
composing a hangover concerto
with what’s left of me
after another night.

~~

Nothing New

The harpsichord evolving
(inside my ear)
from a tin can phone
to a long-distance call
from a dead man,
and I’m left feeling
like a 3 AM wrong number
because of all the music
I know I’ll never hear.