It is bitter cold crossing the Thames
to the Festival Hall,
now we are as warm as if in a local pub.
Hush now you people – who I shall never know,
or meet again anywhere,
Hush the endless calculations
of your tieless brains.
Brahms is adjusting his piano stool.
A fine performance.
Old, fat, cigar smoking Brahms
in the guise of a lovely female takes a bow.
Thank you for these moments,
this hour that came together among us,
take the moments home now
disappear into a somewhere.
Outside it’s raining,
a cold drizzle
that runs down the necks of us all.
It's okay.
Hamburg's Johannes Brahms
wrote lullabies sans any quams
Embarrassed by ny outward show
frustrated conductor as you may know
Brahms pushes a piano into my ear.
I hear the stool creak as he sits.
He does not introduce the music,
he expects me to remember it,
know it, eat it.
He lights up a Havana,
clarinet and violin cough
inside a woody cochlear.
Viola takes hold
of a long nostalgic ligament
loosening a stirrup bone.
Bearded old Brahms
shifts from one large butt cheek
to another,
chords shudder
the music trans-locates us
as we share the lingering hint
of Bratwurst
on his nicotine stained fingers.
Not being musically trained
I am grateful
to accompany a cello and viola
on a kazoo
shaped like a nose.
Feldeinsamkeit (“Solitude in a Field” or "Through the Fields of Solitude")
by Hermann Allmers
translation by David B. Gosselin with Michael R. Burch
Peacefully, I rest in the tall green grass
For a long time only gazing as I lie,
Caught in the endless hymn of crickets,
And encircled by a wonderful blue sky.
And the lovely white clouds floating across
The depths of the heavens are like silky lace;
I feel as though my soul has long since fled,
Softly drifting with them through eternal space.
Originally published by Better Than Starbucks
NOTE: This poem was set to music by the German composer Johannes Brahms. Keywords/Tags: translation, solitude, peace, grass, field, sky, cloud, cloudy, heaven, soul, space, lyric, music
BRAHMS’ LULLABY*
A funeral dirge
Victrola dies mid-sentence
Edison tinkers
Kim Rodrigues © 2017
*Brahms’ Lullaby by Johannes Brahms
JOHANNES BRAHMS.
Soulful tumulted movements grounded in stoically melodic
Vast pools of sounds gliding in dire drumbeats of the heroic
A gift for the bleakness of being sealed in alchemical cistern
Heart stringed intense expressions within a dedicated discipline.
A chromatic boldness in harmony of some faltered age
Into the arms of tragedy defined by the controlled rage
An autumnal sojourn after the summerful of serene depart
An alpine calmness ushered in like high mountain romance
Moods of subdued confessions in an air of drowned sultry
Some virtuositic presence under long shadows of destiny.
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