Page 55 - Diane Musgrove Issue

POE TR Y C ORNER

Soundtracks Six String Maladie

Dom Gagliardi Dom Gagliardi

As a young boy, You stand poised in your corner,
somewhere between the tides seductively posed
of gullibility and adolescent arrogance, in your veil of dust
I often watched my father, like a temptress whose time has passed.
lying propped on one elbow, The scratches on your once smooth skin
listening to the music of his era, are scars of tortured practice and sonorous melodies.
attempting to understand its appeal,
while guessing at his thoughts locked behind eyes shut. Yet, you lure me in
and tease my head with a dream long since dead.
Or I would be a hanger-on, I conjure up the times I caressed you,
when he and his friends would gather my fingers curved around your neck
and sing and cavort to their shared music with youthful agility and finesse,
in a concert of reminiscence, pressing for your response
joyful for what they had, with sounds of sheer delight.
tearful for the possibilities.
You led me on,
Their jocularity would sting, set me on fire
as I resented the remembered criticisms to think I could please your every want.
my father sometimes unleashed in his ridicule But you took me half way,
of the music that stirred my heart and shook my soul, denying the success I never learned to earn
which for him was nothing but excessive noise and while shielding you from the spotlight and point of no
mumbled words. return,
with my hands now tied in knots of wonder
Shrouded in naive and pubescent sarcasm, and dwelling on what could have been.
I drew the invisible lines of generational warfare,
painting them with dismissiveness and derision, Relentless in your pose,
attributed to irreconcilable tastes I ignore your dares
which only fueled the fighting words as you tempt my gnarled fingers
between a man and a boy, to set you unabandoned.
a father and a son. For I am afraid to touch you,
in fear I could not please you,
With decades past, my father long gone, and wonder why I keep you
and with sons and grandchildren of my own, to taunt me
the music of my youth with the buried sounds of distant music.
strikes a different chord.
It’s not a disdain for the current music I feel;
its rhythmic sensations can enliven.

But I was too young when my father was not old
enough
to see the subtle difference,
that notes become strings of melodies,
and melodies become woven memories.
For it’s not a judgment, but instead a preference;
to hold onto one’s past
as the days remaining get shorter,
and the shadow of yesterdays looms larger,
as I lie with eyes shut tightly, propped on one elbow.

These selections are from the forthcoming collection titled “Reflections from the Edge”. To join
the interest list for its first publication, contact me at dom.gagliardi@cox.net