June 2019
Robert Wexelblatt
wexelblatt@verizon.net
Two poems connected to dreams, Firestone’s wide-open theme for the month.  Both depict escapes, one an evasion of confrontation, the other a light-hearted fantasy of an alternative life. Fifty Poems was published on April 30.

​Slow Movement

 
Whenever you tuned up I began to
fall asleep.  You yearned for battle, for me
to parry point with counterpoint, but I
could barely lift my head.  Gravity
gathered me to her bosom; my eyes teared
around the stifled yawns.  Seeing this, you
stretched up one more octave, modulating
your dissonance to harsh diminished ninths
vainly seeking resolution as you
hammered the obdurate anvils in my 
humming ears, while, floating in a chamber
damask-hung and musky, deep as any trench,
I rearranged the bitter scherzo 
of your fury to a dreamy saraband.
 
 
 

 
Daydream


If I could play the piano and speak Italian
I don’t think I’d do anything else, not
if I had Bill Evans’ hands and Mastroianni’s voice.
 
If I could play the piano and speak Italian
I’d be murderously cool, set the fashion
in clothes and jazz.  I’d always be in, never out.
 
If I could play the piano and speak Italian
I’d be desired by women, envied by men.
I’d play “Quiet Now” and sigh Sono un po ‘triste.
 
If I could play the piano and speak Italian
I’d have a blissful night-life, steeped in art--
two sets at Birdland, jamming at the Blue Note.
 
I wouldn’t play just jazz but Busoni and
Scarlatti too, names I’d pronounce elegantly
if I could play the piano and speak Italian.
 
If I could play the piano and speak Italian
I’d give charming interviews, stylishly
laced with Florentine proverbs and Roman jests.
 
If I could play the piano and speak Italian
I wouldn’t be a celebrity; I’d be
adored by a few thousand connoisseurs,
 
aficionados e cognoscenti
who’d invoke my name with warm, knowing smiles,
if I could play the piano and speak Italian.
 
Ah, che bel sogno ad occhi aperti!
All my words would be music, my chords poems,
if I could only play the piano and speak Italian.
                            “Slow Movement” first appeared in Poem.
                            “Daydream” first appeared in Modern Literature.
© 2019 Robert Wexelblatt
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