Play the Sad Violin

play the sad violina short collection of poetry by

Matthew J. Hallcopyright © 2013 by Matthew J. Hall

all rights reserved

first published onwww.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

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

Table of Contents

1

saddest song in the worldSat down on a hard chairguitar on my kneefingers poised

Told my wifeI'm going to write the saddest song in the world

She turned her attention to meWell sweetheart, you've already done that quite a few times overmaybe it's time to try something else now?

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

2

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

Those masters inspire emotionand 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 twobroken and buried up to my neck and have no way of halting the shore

3

These conquerors of sense these kings and queensthese gods these immortalsthose sounds they penetrate, disable, cut, destroy, build, break, love and hate! How can they, the masters, walk amongst ushow can they eat as we eatlift 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 wordscurse this papercurse you words!curse your lack of understandingyour lack of meaning, you--who are so much, yet lack all I need in this momentcurse you for only breaking half of my heartcurse you, wordsyou are incomplete!

Try as I might I can not stay away from the sad stringed masters--they are everythinghold everything, know everythinggive and take everything

She calls for me quietly longs for me to join her invites me insistently from somewhere deep in the intestines

4

play the sad violin There is a stranger inside who refuses analysisa sickness, an undefined nauseawho over the years, has formed her own personality

She is dying down therethe scent of death on her breath is overpoweringI sense her playing the sad violinthe notes hurt my chest and pierce my eyes

she plays in A Minora song I can't quite hear

Her salty tears at the back of my throathaunt me when I smileshe singles out laughter forces it into humble submission

She resents my peaceful surroundingsdetests those who love meinsists I punish them, as she has been punished

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

5

I hate the love I have for herI should kill her, but how do you strangle an already wilting flower?

Deep down there, with her sad violinI could swallow poison and silence herbut 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 the other woman won't let me goshe doesn't hide her song from meand you may know something of love down therebut you know nothing of her

6

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

7

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

Redemption's quest is long and lonelythe road of repentance is barbed and bloody

thank the gods for misjudged ambition, thank the gods for initial naïvety

the taste of defeat would surely have fed my cowardice, given him his fulljustified 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 noosethrown out the fightpoured concrete into organ pipesmelted down French horns and trumpets--thrown myself into the fire

8

No Man's Land is full with the fallenits 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 reservationsgiven time to excuse and procrastinationgiven the devil inside another night, another chance, another story where he writes the end

But I have listened to beauty, grace and chancefoolishly 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 headfor their songs are irrefutabletheir songs become inescapableand now whatever the cost, there is no going back

9

10

silent songHe whispers to the wallpaper with nylon stringslets out the mysteries locked down and inconfessions 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 eyesso redso tiredpicks out a sad melody, an old friendregains a little sight and sings to the space

His toes curl against the thin carpethis fingers at home on the fretboardmoving without command

11

His inner conflict of unknown origins, floats a few feet away

He tries not to think of tearsand sometimes one comes

He tastes it and finds a new note that fits with the old ones

And he is grateful of the silencefor she does not expectshe 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

12

trapped inside my furnitureI painted you on the base of a draweryou are leaning up against an old brick wallI have made you a little more robustwhich has absolutely captured your character

The stockings hang a little lower than they ought, perhaps not to your tasteor anyone else's for that matterbut it doesn't matterbecause for the most part you are covered by socks, belts, vests and under shorts

As Monday trots through Fridayand various garments are removeda little more is revealedand I feel I'm getting to know youbeginning to understand you

Sometimes I even talk to youall complimentary of courseI'm thinking of a pastelon the inside of the wardrobe doora straw hat and a summer skirtwith a slit up-side the right thigh

13

Perhaps you will learn to love mein spite of your confinesperhaps you will one day answer mein spite of being a part of meperhaps you will breathe a kiss at mein spite of your inanimate persuasion

You will never knowand that is for the bestbecause I think my behaviour would appear creepy if I plucked up the courage to invite youand if you were agreeableone day you would see yourselftrapped inside my furniture abstract and obscure

14

incarcerated in canvas

I painted another picture of you last night and hid it withthe others

It's gettingto be quite a collection,it's getting to be a little weird

You are in black lace,thick fish net thighsyour wrists are tied

You are on canvasand paperand chip boardand plyagainst a backdropof red brick shadowsin the lamp-lit night

We spoke at the bus stop, briefly huskydeepunabashedyou rolled your tongue and told me the time

I have captured your voice with acrylictonight will be charcoal

With thumb, fingers,heal and palm, I willsmooth out your roughedgesand you will rub off onto my hands

15

when we were kidsGrowing up in a small market townwe didn't have a shopping centreor a cinema or a train station

The police station had two cellsthe library had three sectionsthe 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

16

One of my teachers hung himselfa boy's father also hung himselfas 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 dayin 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 rooftopsblue skies and cigarettesmaggots and discarded animal insides

17

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 meyou 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.

18

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 horrorand 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.

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

19

she has shunned bounds and structureHer heart dangles from her green, frayed sleeveand 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

20

The cost is hersthe price is oursthe rules are broken and bleedingshe squints and blinks from having seen too muchpaying heavy for her freedom

Her shell is thin and fragileshe is pitied, hated and ignored

She counts red ants on stone walls steels time and refuses debtshe holds court with the inanimatehas immortalised childish reasoningshe weeps for dead butterfliesand 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

21

Last season's sun seemed so much brighter,warm on our backsour legs crossed on soft grassour conversations interlocked between usour 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 humiditymy body kidding itself cool by the production of sticky sweat--tonight, the ghosts revisit

Tonight, my back is cold and my thoughts are closedthe grass out side this open window has yellowed and withered

You no longer visit my dreams, so I strain bloodshot eyes

the ghosts of tonight

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 downbut I fear you to be hidden deeper than thatdeeper than it dare drag me

Tomorrow the spiders will spin their websand 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

22

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

23

early morning musings

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

24

what use to me is an open sunflower in the middle of

June?

I would like to be warmdignified and comfortable like Chopin's Prelude in E Minorbut even more than thatI would like to catch a blue gillwith my wifeon a sunny dayjust one more timeat pond-sidewith everything in frontand an abilitya platforma permissionto forget everything behind

when I go

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