How to Play the Piano

On top of fluted spines
Between the massing pools
Of dark chromatic lines

And using blood for fuel
Follow all the signs
And signatures

Hand in glove
As if the notes were
Written by Rachmaninoff

Read the fine print
On the flapping label
In the search for love

And the incidentals
Of the dim rule
On the page above

Take the clouded hint
Or later on you’ll
Leave to romance

All the fine print
Of the intellectual
Handcuffed to chance

Lost in jewels’
Dream of hell
With inhuman hands.

December 31st, 1969
July 4th, 2022, Kaiholu