Sad Old Piano Player Poem by Rory Hudson

Sad old piano player, you,
bent at the keyboard over black and white,
poided in your coat and tails, fingers over the notes,
remembering nights from forty years gone by
of spelling out your life in broken chords,
of syncopated shreds you threw to waiting crowds,
the heady sweat of dancers all around.

You fell in love, piano player,
among the lights that flickered and were gone,
among the stale reek of cigarettes and beer,
among the raucous cries that drifted darkly out into the night;
you fell in love with wild girls who knew no other nights,
who danced with long hair flung brazenly across dark eyes,
who stepped fast across the floor, skirts swirling wide,
who sparkled, nymph-like, in the farthest corners of your mind,
who broke the arms of all the strongest youths,
who slipped their songs in all the notes you played,
who called for more when your songs were done and could not be satisfied,
who died dessicated crying against the night
alone in dreary beds that held them tightly like a clam,
followed to the grave by dull men in black suits who did not understand
the putrefaction setting in beneath the embalmer’s art.

Sad old piano player,
now with gnarled hands you mete out the measure of the dance.