The Melody of Her Pulse

A Poem by xx

It's hard to keep time, even if you have a metronome at your side.

The melody of her pulse
belongs to a strange time signature
whenever he draws near enough
to pluck at the shaking chords of her shaking mind.

She understands his reticence
as clearly as she understands her own.
She understands the arrhythmic absence
of his sympathies and glances.

She hides from it all.
She hides from his silence
and loudness is the only thing
that will ever draw her out.

And the melody of her pulse rests for two beats
and the first note slurs for three;
the timbre of her heartbeat drops without warning
from treble clef to bass.

But she has valor.
She trills the proper notes
but at an octave or seven too high;
she splays her fingers over the piano keys.

Her fingers slip -
too many b sharps and d flats thrown in with all the naturals.
The metronome ticks on, unheeded.

Both feet are on the pedals -
all three pedals, all three -
and she tries to fill in for the missing notes with slurs and the sostuneto.

But the silence is there.
Her ears are ringing with all the sounds flying from the strings
and her pulse throbs strangely against her skin
but she feels the broken quiet all the same.

It's all in the technique.
The proper finger movements, the training.
By the time she moves on to the G scale, she says,
she'll have forgotten that he was never there.

The melody of her pulse refuses to follow
the time signature she set for herself.
But she can't stop - she fears the silence
because loudness is the only thing that will ever draw her out.

© 2012 xx

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reflectingus

This piece is intriguing. I just love the musical allusion to this whole poem, and the way you blended it all as one, just flawless. The descriptions are very precise, and perfect, and for some reason, I feel like reading this poem quietly, and slowly, devouring each meaning. I also love the way you repeated the last line from the middle of the poem, it just worked its magic, and ended the poem perfectly. I'm so glad I could understand all those musical words because I did learn how to read music a few years back, for my clarinet lol, so yes, I could understand it. But either ways, the rhythm created is amazing, seriously, I love this poem a lot.