O W E N  L U C A S  |  Monsoon 2014

423

DUKE ELLINGTON : Rude Interlude

It has been adequately written that life
Is an interlude of distorted noise
Between two crackling fields of silence,

And to state so is uncontroversial--
With a volley of broken chords we fall
Out of utero. There is a pause for breath,

And then a long, slow swell. Wah-waaah.
The measure of our life crunches forward.
At each second count, a knuckle of ivory,

And our bodies stagger into their shapes.
Somewhere around the age of twelve,
We develop a peculiar sass. The trumpet

Adopts a harmon tone and swallows its
Purity; so, we squelch on into adulthood.
At the turn of the third decade, we find

A sonorous voice blowing from our lips.
De-de-da-dadee, de-de-da-dadee.
We startle, then recognise it as our own.

A sudden wind, and summer palms off
Its colours in a bluster of clarinets.
Curtains of brass are drawing down,

Curtains of brass and pearl draw down :
A bucketful of green pondwater, the voice
Of our maturity sloshes from its vessel.

The horns swell vigorously, and it is as if
A bridge of light bolstered in our view.
The recording ends abruptly with a tamp

On the hi-hat. We are convinced, however,
That we hear a reiteration, in the restless
Silence, of the first three broken chords.





436

It is eleven o'clock
           And a sound hangs in the air

That says you are undressed,
           Having eaten no breakfast.

Your keys, cercle des étoiles,
           Are by the vase of painted

Juliets; further, you recall
            That you sang last night low

And sweet your father's
            Father's name twelve times

And retired stoopingly
            From public life, considering

Yourself Grace Kelly,
            And engaged to a grandiose

And lunatic authority.
            The kettle clicks and a pleat

Of steam follows a pleat
            Of steam up out of it: “Blute,

“Blute, ich blute, ich blüte.”
            You prepare to recite from

An internal register the blustering
             Total of your functions.

*

Owen Lucas is a British writer living in Norwalk, Connecticut. His poetry, fiction and translations have been published in more than thirty journals in the US, Britain and Canada. During 2013, twenty-two of his ekphrasis poems were serialized by Mountain Tales Press. Other recent credits include Off the Coast, Vector Press,Pacifica, Lost in Thought, RiverLit, Contemporary Poetry 2 and Paper Nautilus,with new work out soon in Qwerty and Free State Review.