A Melody
A melody echoes through
the walls, reverberating softly,
quietly, absently in the hallway,
seeping up through the paint,
tingeing it with the crackle
of color that once wandered through
the corridors of a half-forgotten
consciousness I thought I remembered.
I hear the record skip a beat, its
metronome tapping against
the insistent plod of scratched vinyl.
The piano arpeggiates to keep
time, to keep its shape, to accompany
the passing seconds. A voice
reminds me that it speaks through
muffled words, disintegrating bliss—
without a future, without a past—
that decomposes in the contour of
a turn of phrase—that wears out in
the ghost breath the singer draws in.
The cracked memory of another time
or place deliriously meanders through
my thoughts, maniacally haunting
the vacant, three AM shadows that
crawl between my ears.
The disfigured ache, the fuzzing hum
of saudade, never quite materializes,
never quite comes into focus.
An image, a decoupage of
my impressions, sifts through
the jazz of midnight and cloaks
the air with the gray noise of decay
and rediscovery. A melody reminds me
of the choric sounds, the tumult
of tiny, vanishing hooks that trace
what was once sunshine—
what was camaraderie at arm's length.
poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
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