Rave Notice

Dark fingers rained a thousand captured chords Ranging like restless fireflies under glass Gathered notes in freakish trilling hordes Offering the Danse Macabre pass. Sensuous and delicate on the keys Before the great unmoving cause So arranged to haunt the sad demise The pallor over pasted triplets falls. Restive sighs are pierced by plunging swords Of dissonance, the soul cannot appease His thunderous triumph, ovation soon affords The master well-deserved, if outlandish, fees. ["Rave Notice" first appeared in The Hoosier Challenger, 1968; written c. 1967, it was reprinted in The Lady in the Pink Hat, Candor Press, 1969.] FIRST PLACE WINNER Brian Strand's "All Yours" Contest Poetry Soup - April 9, 2021