Waiting For Monk

Two tappings on the keyboard awaken me
from the slumber of my hard-fought day.

Gracefully the piano glistens as The Monk
enlightens us with his magic.

Painful beauty.

Is it the vodka which fires my need to crawl
inside the music or something more?

Wishing I was born black is no answer,
I am a whale on this shore.

Silences fill the moments between the notes
and become the grounds for the notes themselves.
Stretched like canvas on frames twanged from
a firmament of tones, they meet our anticipation
and spellbind.

In resolve I determine that I am making the melody
as it unfolds before me, never mind the vinyl
set before my birth.

Cool imaginings deserve this regret,
I will never create this beauty.

Go man. Go.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~