Four Riffs on “Three Musicians” (Picasso)
A tune is the ultimate abstraction,
An emotion expressed as a fraction.
Some notes invariably repeated
Become a cold emotion reheated.
Not all musicians are made of music.
Some are talent, some mere facility.
The best I’ve known live a necessity,
Like physicists slave to mathematics.
Picasso’s clowns can only make us dance,
Twist our senses into a whirling trance.
I’ve wept at the silence a conductor
Held at the end of the Ninth of Mahler,
As if to say, “Behold what’s gone before —
Anguish, redemption, hope — and don’t despair.”
Note: This is one of more than 100 poems after paintings or images, which can be viewed at the blog, Zealotry of Guerin.
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