Beethoven Speaks

         God lit the fuse in secret,
         sparks tickling my ears
         as I plunged from the womb
         into the cacophonous world
         of humanity and sound.

         Invisible breath fanned the flame
         until it raged and licked
         at vestiges of ordinary youth,
         and I kicked the bitter ashes:

         brittle boyhood dreams
         fluttered into the wind,
         snagging on my soul until
         their flight exposed a hidden gleam -
         divine intimations
         woven on slender strands
         of treble and bass clef.

         I chased the heat
         down into the pregnant center,
         a rumbling ball of musical combustion
         planted in a crevice of my mind.

         The explosion surged across
         the palate of my thoughts,
         unleashed melodic passion
         that wrestled with my sanity
         across the unfurled years.

         In morbid moments,
         raking hands through riotous hair,
         I thought suicide a reasonable trade
         for the steady stalk of deafness,
         for eternally lagging two steps
         behind the salve of a woman's love.

         Yet despair never bled me dry;
         the Spark-Giver always came and
         flickered the tinder of my
         dissipating strength
         until I roared back at the pathos,
         and danced in the consuming flames,

         birthing sonatas by moonlight
         to usher in the night,
         scrawling symphonies by sunrise
         to resurrect the dawn.



         ~ 2008 (edited 2011) ~