Play the Sad Violin by Matthew Hall

play the sad violin a short collection of poetry by Matthew J. Hall copyright ÂŠ 2013 by Matthew J. Hall all rights reserved first published on www.issuu.com, July 2013 this collection and more, available at www.screamingwithbrevity.com

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sometimes a blank canvas is so much more beautiful

Table of

Contents

1 saddest song in the world 2 those masters 5 play the sad violin 7 if I had known the price of freedom 10 silent song 12 trapped inside my furniture 14 incarcerated in canvas 15 when we were kids 17 there is something wrong with that boy 19 she has shunned bounds and structure 21 the ghosts of tonight 23 early morning musings 24 what use to me is an open sunflower in the middle of June? 25 when I go

saddest song in the world Sat down on a hard chair guitar on my knee fingers poised Told my wife I'm going to write the saddest song in the world She turned her attention to me Well sweetheart, you've already done that quite a few times over maybe it's time to try something else now?

those masters

Try as I might I can't capture the notes and stick them onto this page the key, the composer, the conductor, the phrasing, everything is out of reach

Those masters inspire emotion and emotion throws itself onto the sharp sword if I could push my hand through your skin, into your gut, grab hold and twist back and forth we wouldn't even be one third from ignorance to insight I can no more describe it as I can paint the colour of love I am ripped in two broken and buried up to my neck and have no way of halting the shore How can the world keep turning when they play? why has the sky remained in place when they play? what gives the grass the right to grow when the last echo from the final string has had its say? these masters have me at their feet, yet they ask for nothing

These these these these those

conquerors of sense kings and queens gods immortals sounds they penetrate, disable, cut, destroy, build, break, love and hate!

How can they, the masters, walk amongst us how can they eat as we eat lift cups to lips as we drink relieve themselves as mortals wash their hands and comb their hair I am dust and can not find the words curse this paper curse you words! curse your lack of understanding your lack of meaning, you--who are so much, yet lack all I need in this moment curse you for only breaking half of my heart curse you, words you are incomplete! Try as I might I can not stay away from the sad stringed masters--they are everything hold everything, know everything give and take everything

play the sad violin

There is a stranger inside who refuses analysis a sickness, an undefined nausea who over the years, has formed her own personality She is dying down there the scent of death on her breath is overpowering I sense her playing the sad violin the notes hurt my chest and pierce my eyes she plays in A Minor a song I can't quite hear Her salty tears at the back of my throat haunt me when I smile she singles out laughter forces it into humble submission She resents my peaceful surroundings detests those who love me insists I punish them, as she has been punished She calls for me quietly longs for me to join her invites me insistently from somewhere deep in the intestines

I hate the love I have for her I should kill her, but how do you strangle an already wilting flower? Deep down there, with her sad violin I could swallow poison and silence her but deeper down and deeper yet, I know that is what she wants She imagines us as dancing ghosts far from all the others embraced in a sad A Minor waltz our bare feet, light and free on floorboards of eternal mist But she and but

the other woman won't let me go doesn't hide her song from me you may know something of love down there you know nothing of her Her tears stand out in the rain and though she is cynical of the promise she believes in every rainbow she washes my face and wants me to live she tells me to look after myself she looks at me expectantly trusting we will reap as we sow

She does not play the sad violin yet I hear her song clearly as the oak as the strong limbs withstanding fierce winds She places her head on my chest straining her ears she wants to get to know you but I won't let her and neither will you we are too jealous for that and it is breaking all of our hearts

if I had known the price of freedom Had I known the price of freedom I would have searched out every viola and smashed it to splinters

Redemption's quest is long and lonely the road of repentance is barbed and bloody thank the gods for misjudged ambition, thank the gods for initial na誰vety the taste of defeat would surely have fed my cowardice, given him his full justified his influence, his associates, his friends Recovery is a far off flame, flickering in the distance--a dancing light under a bulbous halo Had I known its price, I would have cut the strings from all the violins, fashioned them into a noose thrown out the fight poured concrete into organ pipes melted down French horns and trumpets--thrown myself into the fire

No Man's Land is full with the fallen its damp air is dangerous with bullets and shrapnel Had I known the cost I would have never climbed up, better still, I would have stayed the hell away from those flooded and wretched trenches Had I known the demands of grace, I would have surrendered or deserted given in to reservations given time to excuse and procrastination given the devil inside another night, another chance, another story where he writes the end But I have listened to beauty, grace and chance foolishly allowed their song to clean my face and hands Had I known the cost I would have butchered my ears, hacked them apart from my head for their songs are irrefutable their songs become inescapable and now whatever the cost, there is no going back

silent song He whispers to the wallpaper with nylon strings lets out the mysteries locked down and in confessions he couldn't otherwise admit to any who breathe, speak, listen or remember The peeling paint on the ceiling would never suggest he lift the bushel cares not for his light, bright or dim He closes his eyes so red so tired picks out a sad melody, an old friend regains a little sight and sings to the space His toes curl against the thin carpet his fingers at home on the fretboard moving without command

His inner conflict of unknown origins, floats a few feet away He tries not to think of tears and sometimes one comes He tastes it and finds a new note that fits with the old ones And he is grateful of the silence for she does not expect she carries his song carefully and allows him to be beautiful He plays with brevity sings the last line the most precious words of all are the ones he sings to the paper, the paint, the space and the floor

trapped inside my furniture I painted you on the base of a drawer you are leaning up against an old brick wall I have made you a little more robust which has absolutely captured your character The stockings hang a little lower than they ought, perhaps not to your taste or anyone else's for that matter but it doesn't matter because for the most part you are covered by socks, belts, vests and under shorts As Monday trots through Friday and various garments are removed a little more is revealed and I feel I'm getting to know you beginning to understand you Sometimes I even talk to you all complimentary of course I'm thinking of a pastel on the inside of the wardrobe door a straw hat and a summer skirt with a slit up-side the right thigh

Perhaps you in spite of perhaps you in spite of perhaps you in spite of

will learn to love me your confines will one day answer me being a part of me will breathe a kiss at me your inanimate persuasion

You will never know and that is for the best because I think my behaviour would appear creepy if I plucked up the courage to invite you and if you were agreeable one day you would see yourself trapped inside my furniture abstract and obscure

I painted another picture of you last night and hid it with the others It's getting to be quite a collection, it's getting to be a little weird You are in black lace, thick fish net thighs your wrists are tied You are on canvas and paper and chip board and ply against a backdrop of red brick shadows in the lamp-lit night

incarcerated in canvas

We spoke at the bus stop, briefly husky deep unabashed you rolled your tongue and told me the time I have captured your voice with acrylic tonight will be charcoal With thumb, fingers, heal and palm, I will smooth out your rough edges and you will rub off onto my hands

when we were kids Growing up in a small market town we didn't have a shopping centre or a cinema or a train station The police station had two cells the library had three sections the museum had a penny farthing My brother and I used to sneak behind the slaughterhouse and lift the lid of a metal trolley so we could stare at the sheep guts and the maggots therein the stench was phenomenal I can smell it now Our school building was white and held all the appearance of a hospital During long summer nights of the sort that can only exist in memory we would clamber on top of the roof and smoke our secret cigarettes

One of my teachers hung himself a boy's father also hung himself as did a boy a year my junior All of this was before the age of mobile phones My friends and I would make prank calls and laugh inside of red telephone boxes I stepped inside of one the other day in order to reminisce there was a fine black spider hanging from the receiver he looked like he had been there for quite some time I dialled a number and while I waited for an answer I thought about suicide and rooftops blue skies and cigarettes maggots and discarded animal insides

there is something wrong with that boy I remember sitting in front of the TV smiling--just smiling. It occurred to me that I shouldn't be, shouldn't be smiling, so I stopped. I wasn't sad, but thought for some reason I should be. My Mother said he used to be such a happy boy, until he started school, then something changed. I remember a teacher telling me you remind me of me, you have realised that life isn't fair and it has taken your smile. My Father would tell people he is smiling on the inside.

At bed time I would pray for the starving and the homeless. I would pray against terrorism and poverty and rape. I locked the bathroom door, sat down and wept. For the world, for the terror, for the horror and for me. For the lies I had told, for the temper I had lost,for the murder in my heart. While the other children played marbles in the playground, I sat under a stairway studying their smiles. And sometimes that made me smile. And sometimes I didn't force it away.

she has shunned bounds and structure Her heart dangles from her green, frayed sleeve and it beats loud and hard

She is a thief, a beggar and a scoundrel but there is a raw honesty in her decaying teeth She has chased the sun and it left her cold she has questioned the gods and listened her suggestive tones are at odds with her damp, dank aroma She is out of place and appears ill at ease having never quite understood social bounds and structure Her step is not feminine her clothes are not flattering her thin hair is knotted and limp yet there is more grace in her demeanour than any tiara, white dress or fairy tale emerald slipper She walks in the night drinks in the morning and knows not common routines

Her shell is thin and fragile she is pitied, hated and ignored She counts red ants on stone walls steels time and refuses debt she holds court with the inanimate has immortalised childish reasoning she weeps for dead butterflies and talks to flowers and crows She is age and youth combined and confused a strange mixture of experience and innocence she skips freely in a small cage of her own making, while we slowly circle life's cycle The cost is hers the price is ours the rules are broken and bleeding she squints and blinks from having seen too much paying heavy for her freedom

the ghosts of tonight Last season's sun seemed so much brighter, warm on our backs our legs crossed on soft grass our conversations interlocked between us our thoughts upturned and open Night-time hallways where we met in secret, far from the ghosts of tonight Though still young and free, a lifetime stands between us In spite of my efforts I am sad to forget Tonight, trapped in this maddening humidity my body kidding itself cool by the production of sticky sweat--tonight, the ghosts revisit Tonight, my back is cold and my thoughts are closed the grass out side this open window has yellowed and withered You no longer visit my dreams, so I strain bloodshot eyes

Tomorrow the birds will sing and the river will glisten--and the ghosts of tonight will sleep It is surely too early to follow the wraith into the ground If I let it, it will take me all the way down but I fear you to be hidden deeper than that deeper than it dare drag me Tomorrow the spiders will spin their webs and the flies will fly into them and I will look for you and lay redeeming flowers at your feet And the ghosts of tonight will be stilled and silent

early morning musings During a strong coffee, part way through my first cigarette of the day it dawned on me that the birds will continue to sing regardless of the listener or lack thereof wild flowers will emit wild scent the moon, the sun the wind and the waves know nothing of me my coffee my cigarette or my musings

what use to me is an open sunflower in the middle of June? The best way to endure November rain is back and forth on an old rocking chair with full bodied cigars a place to spit and stringed instrument music to lean against

when I go I would like to be warm dignified and comfortable like Chopin's Prelude in E Minor but even more than that I would like to catch a blue gill with my wife on a sunny day just one more time at pond-side with everything in front and an ability a platform a permission to forget everything behind

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