Piano poetry Piano



Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.



In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

to the old Sunday evenings at home, with the winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.



David Herbert Lawrence 1985-1930 Great Britain Those Who Carry



Those who carry grand pianos

To the tenth floor wardrobes and coffins

The old man with a bundle of wood hobbling beyond the horizon

The woman with a hump of nettles

The lunatic pushing her baby carriage

Full of empty vodka bottles

They all will be raised up

Like a seagull feather like a dry leaf

Like eggshell scraps of street newspapers

Blessed are those who carry

For they will be raised.



Anna Kamienska Polen



Early



Early in the morning I hear on your piano

You (at least, I guess it's you) proceed to learn to play.

Mostly little minds should take and tackle their piano

While the birds are singing in the morning of the day.



Robert Louis Stevenson Maw-Maw's Wish



Tiny finger press

the stiff piano keys down.

Maw-Maw listens as if Mozart or Beethoven

were playing a special concerto just for her.

Mistakes never even touch her ears.

She listens as her only granddaughter plays.

The old wooden piano.

Though it was old and sounded

like a child beating on tin cans,

to her she was hearing a grand piano.

The chipped wooden keys

were seen as ivory through her eyes.

Every nick and scratch was another fond memory

of her family.

Her only wish was for me to play the piano.

Years later I play the piano

while angels carry the notes up to heaven

for Maw-Maw to hear. Leigh Anne Bonnema My Piano



I have elastic piano.

It has mustard on it.

Peanuts on it too.

Maybe if I stand still my piano won't wipe out.

Squirt me some mustard to dance with on the elastic floor.

Oh! How about some peanuts too.

Give me a piano to play the wipe out song. Taylor Davis (Elementary school student) A Piano Plays



Music, in variety thrives,

And the glory of song is within your eyes.

Trumpets and drums and fiddles too,

Reflect the songs I find in you.

Violins cry, cellos moan,

With music of dreams, of love, of home.

Deep within a piano plays,

Springing forth to you this day.

Providing a home for it and you,

I give you love and devotion too. Dennis R Graham Player Piano



My stick fingers click with a snicker

And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys;

Light footed, my steel feelers flicker

And pluck from these keys melodies. My paper can caper; abandon

Is broadcast by dint of my din,

And no man or band has a hand in

The tones I turn on from within.



At times I'm a jumble of rumbles,

At others I'm light like the moon,

But never my numb plunker fumbles,

Misstrums me, or tries a new tune. John Updike

To Lina



Should these songs, love, as they fleet,

Chance again to reach thy hand,

At the piano take thy seat,

Where thy friend was wont to stand!

Sweep with finger bold the string,

Then the book one moment see:

But read not! do nought but sing!

And each page thine own will be!

Ah, what grief the song imparts

With its letters, black on white,

That, when breath'd by thee, our hearts

Now can break and now delight! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)

Piano Practice



The summer hums. The afternoon fatigues;

she breathed her crisp white dress distractedly

and put into it that sharply etched etude

her impatience for a reality hat could come: tomorrow, this evening--,

that perhaps was there, was just kept hidden;

and at the window, tall and having everything,

she suddenly could feel the pampered park. With that she broke off; gazed outside, locked

her hands together; wished for a long book--

and in a burst of anger shoved back

the jasmine scent. She found it sickened her. Rainer Maria Rilke - 1875-1926







The Piano



When my heart is unsettled,

And tossed about the seas of emotions,

My fingers go to the keyboard,

Where my soul bleeds the pain,

Into the notes,

Into the music,

And I seek peace,

Among dead composers.



R.Scarlett



In the two hands



of that girl sitting at the piano

ceaselessly

ten together

twenty together

fresh bright fish,

following the sparkling light,

come bursting out one after another.

I went to the seaside

and caught

one wave

of the most thrilling deep blue.

prefers lowly places



Ponggon Chon 1928-1988 Korea The Piano Lesson



like a little buddha

the big fat deaf siamese sat

purring on the baby grand lid

while Ms. Simms

plunk, plink plunked

on the keys (fragm.)

D A Sebastian A Black Bird-filled Piano



Black birds on telephone wires

or notes on a page, to be played

on piano.

Flying round, or staying still;

a sound hovering in air.

Whizzing past the ear,

a race of black and white.

Shining teeth and paper

the black birds' soul delight,

to sit and look at

cloudy sky, from dawn, to noon, to night.

'Til stars shine out

against a darkened sky of black,

to sing out the heart's own song.

There, outside my window,

black birds on telephone wires,

the notes....

the life.....

of a black bird-filled piano. Brittney O (age 15) Piano of uncivil law



this piano is always played

but slowly slowly loosens pitch

drifting keys flex a growing dissonance

the pianists do not hear

they are exercising ever exercising

as the tone declines across the octaves

we

we summonsed

we hear their scratching clash

we see their schadenfreuderern

pillocks in the audience

mirthed

enough

i have hired the sphinx's amplifier

speakers the size of pyramids

the rasta dj

they're on the way Dylan Harris The Day the Piano Tuner Came



It was an event

in our house that Saturday,

my daughter wrestling

the mute "E", bitter "C",

I, wanting no more missing teeth

in the songs I play

between dinner and bedtime stories. So he came, rumbling

up the driveway in his VW Squareback

raised the top of the spinet,

exposed the rows of felt hammers

waiting like teeth for a dentist. His delicate ivory hands

smoothed the grooves

out of the tiny felt heads,

we heard less of the ping - ping

as he poked, his head

tilted to one side,

I'll bet he turns

his head the same way

to a conch shell

does not hear waves

but concertos coming to shore



Martha Clarkson

( )

If I could I'd go back, sit down by you both,

And sign our true armistice: you weren't to blame.

I shut my eyes and there's our living room.

The piano's playing something by Chopin,

And Mother and Father and their little girl Listen. Look, the keys go down by themselves!

I go over, hold my hands out, play I play --

If only, somehow, I had learned to live!

The three of us sit watching, as my waltz

Plays itself out a half-inch from my fingers. Randall Jarrell 1914-1965 USA

A Writing Pianist







