Friday Poem

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Moto Perpetuo
Dionisio D.  Martinez

1
I’ve been walking in circles for what seems like days.
They’ve been playing Paganini, but you know

how intermittent the conscious ear
can be.  How selective.  Walking has nothing to do

with distance as clearly as Paganini
has nothing to do with the violin that plays him hard.

2
How it hurt Jackson Pollock, during his black
and white period, to hear the critics say

that he was painting black on white; how important
the gaps and absences were to him;

how crucial the distances; the gulf; how
critical each emptiness to each composition.

3
There is that moment in, say, the finale of Beethoven’s
Fifth, when you hear nothing between the various

false endings, so you make your own music,
a bridge of silence from one illusion

to the next.  A deeper and more refined
ear —Beethoven’s ear— takes care of this.

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