On hearing Hungarian Rhapsody at 2am

how did i know? what a silly question, how does anyone know?

how can that freshouttatheegg hatchling know until he takes one wrong grip and slips, swinging his wings till he falls right off the lowest (G) staff line.

bounces off eighth rests (don’t they just look like they’d be elastic and springy?)

downy tufts flying blinking those coal black eyes all pupil

feet up flailing

(air is matter, after all, it will support you if you beat it hard enough)

starts just something

anything

one note in front of the other

bending tendons

letting his feathers shake pleasure resonations

well you can’t just hover in that bass cleft forever, honey

a deep-throated c-sharp is a great start now make it climb

it’s the same way the rain-soaked street cat finds his way to his dish every night

even when dazzled by the eye-stinging stench of rotting eggs and blasts of musty steam from subway vents

and a fat, cawing housewife pouring hot cooking oil (don’t you dare put that down the drain it’ll clog the pipes!) into her neighbor’s plants.

same way Liszt knew c# minor would be the best [ fit ] i guess.

igniting the frank intention given to uncharacteristically big hands

tentative bass (c#-g#-c#) clawing up through moldy caverns

cracked shells glisten.

Listen,

it’s kind of like you’re the yolk and what you used to be—before—is the albumen

you know?

sticky white threads of assurance are the only things connecting you to anything familiar.

And man are they slimy.

But how do you…?

well that’s the tricky part. i guess it’s the spatula, get it?

you really don’t have any way of knowing, until all of a sudden you’re…scrambled.

…fuck. that analogy sounded much better yesterday.

God, it’s like breathing in scalding cooking oil

pop pop sizzle pop POW

catching it on your tongue as it staccatos off the castiron pan.

scarlet dust columns fly

furiously from the keys, explode clouds filling canyons of sharps and flats,

the little bird searches for an odor of memory

only to find amber-trapped ants

who, feeling the scorching shame of anachronism,

try in vain to recede into their segments.

better you, though, than all this sameness.

world spins shameless of the mixing

keeps going, droning, clones seek comfort knowing

that you can never ever

stir things apart.

let’s try a really low C (what is that, five bars below G?)…the lowest C on the board…number 86 if you counted high to low, I believe.

oh but this is c-sharp minor, mind you. it’s very. Very. Different.

hey remember that baby bird? daring to leave his oaken cradle.

fucking around in the baser clefts? look at him now.

trilling

(an entire line endeavor all fits—how??—into just one measure)

reckless

(32^nd notes i should say) around in the ultrahigh 8va.

how did he get up there so fast?

those octaves are way, way too high.

far too dangerous for such a little bird.

but chicks have never been known to listen to reason.

look at him riding those warm, wet updrafts. Ok, so he hasn’t got the fingering (or is it wingering?) right quite yet.

but damn is he trying.

and what about those oversized amber-trapped ants?

struggling with stagnation.

scaling octaves the little bird rolls by shouting words of encouragement.

don’t be sad i know you, your kind and your time. i was a dinosaur once, too, remember?

trust me, there is enough space, for everyone to feel out of place, somewhere.