Impromptu No. 4 in A-flat Major

Freedom to choose, oh yes, I can choose

to focus on translations - or write a poem

and delight in singing lines, feeling guilty

about my escape from tortuous life

I may not escape my job of grinding words

and lines, crunching melody, rhythm and

sound - leaving meaning only - which

pays the bills and buys pretty things

Reading discordant and dissonant texts

that hurt ears and eyes - but all choice

entails responsibility for consequence:

Who can be free in choosing between

the devil and the deep blue sea, why al-

ways negative outcomes irrespective of

choice?  If you do you suffer, if you don’t

you simply suffer another way

Freedom means choosing between all

kinds of suffering - whatever we do, the

result is guilt and misery, meaning we

can only choose how to deal with life

Smiling while praying for quick release or

cynically surrendering to life’s vicissitudes

bowing in bitter resignation - freedom be-
comes a choice between attitudes

Acceptance or rejection of every condition,

it’s tiring to be angry all the time, easier to

laugh, La Comédie Humaine is fun, we all

fall down and get up a million times

Crying would spoil the mask we wear, lay

our secret feelings bare - we can gravitate

towards laughter wherever it rings, as long

as we can resonate with its happiness

In spite of sinking in quicksand, we can sing,

until we are beheaded at the guillotine or

hung upon a cross, we can be as pious

or as raucous as we choose

I choose piety because it is more beautiful,

if our lives have to end in tragedy, I want

mine to please with harmonious lines -

listening to spiritual renditions of

Schubert - Impromptu No.4 in A-flat major,
Boccherini's Minuet, Debussy - Clair de
Lune - while taking leave of life to
continue existence somewhere
beyond Planet Earth

Beyond this universe where visual forms
suppress the sound of metre and melody,
only one meaning allowed, symbols 
reduced to define a reality

Stripped of all emotion, where association
and connotation are outlawed - we are
changed into a workforce bearing the
yoke of life while being robbed from
 
Imagination and feeling...