I stand in the midst of this deadly success as an accused man. This fatal fame hurts me. I cried all of the disappointments of my heart into this song, and it seems that others with feelings like mine have found their own hurt in it.
—Seress1
i. Bloodwood
A family tree with branches of
lightning rods, and sons who are firebrands
whose sparks tonight are needles dropping
off, falling hard onto puddles of
what must, or might as well, be wax, dripped
bullets dodging with burns, with leaden
words, turning no one’s glance, certainly
not the world’s, down toward this path purged
memory struggles against pass pearled
flashes of an abandoned past, talc
powdering silver mirrored in shards
of glass marred by shed rain, ivoried
streaks glimmering across fingertips
of breath touching, but not feeling much
of them, images reeling with pain,
an epidemic cinematic
ii. Deadwood
when glimpsed through a lens magnifying
inner intensities lessons in
classical melodramatics blend
to pastels enemy empathy
impervious to lightning’s kisses
without apology greys, empties
of impact’s insidious intent
this tempest’s facetious gaze, torment
circumvents when beneath its bend these
limbs reach deep, appendages in need
seeking not vengeance but relief bleed
tributary sap, hands wringing necks
of centuries grasp what successes
left untapped beg of those tasked with death
yet dare not ask, to hold close what gasp
is given up last when getting axed.
__________
1Rezső Seress, when questioned about the mounting controversy surrounding the allegèd dangerous effects on listeners of his 1933 hit song, “Gloomy Sunday,” co-written with poet László Jávor and purported to incite depression and suicide; a response by the Hungarian composer originally printed in the “Letters” section of Time Magazine’s April 13th, 1936 issue, and quoted in “Chapter 6. Why do we listen to sad music?” of Harry Witchel’s You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are, published at New York by Algora Publishing in 2010; page 107.
Jono Borden 