A Prayer for Disharmony
O orchestra, storm! Enough
with the crowd-pleasers playing
it safe. Smoke your rhythmic roll
of reed and brass, conduct
concertos charged electric. Pour
bubbly from fluted glasses, piccolo
us, horn us, pluck us saxy. Swing signs
and cymbals, vibrato
our steel-stringed bones.
Blow us from our cushioned
seats, and movement me vivace
from despair to action, timpani
without tip-toe. No more
lento-gravé, composing
me to death, a broken motif
on repeat, all pomp, no
circumstance. I crave
dissonance, tempest
and prestissimo, roused
to discordant halls of protest,
on my feet, applauding a new world,
symphonic. 1812 Overture me,
cannons without Pachelbel,
violins to beat the tacet rest
from my tautly-strung chambers,
a piece of hymn from my B-flat heart.