Tone Poem

For Cecil Taylor (March 25, 1929-April, 2018)

 

A new poetics of sound

A raw, invented syntax from

the realm of chance melodics

No two stars alike

No two notes alike

No two moments alike

For those who want to go back

to the beginning, back to the ark

of all things, there is no return

No time to cover sleeping ears

No time to resume games of

true or false, good or bad in

white, garroted innocence

The anti-mnemonics of Cecil’s

dystopian angst cause many an

aficionado discomfort over

riddles and sphinxes

Beginning with the apocryphal

explosion of chords blasted out

of a Steinway like cluster bombs

Everything’s a puzzle not to be

solved but absorbed in the

improvised anarchy that will

detonate Death in the

face of fixed order

Cecil’s hands leap across the

rippling sea of black and white

keys stretched before him like

myriad worlds

It’s as if he’s alone on the far side

of the moon tasked with the

urgent mission to resurrect

zombies in limbo with the

sorcery of his touch

[email protected] 2019 by Genny Lim