Music to one’s own ears may not sound the same to another’s. Argentina dances to the Tango, Brazil carnivals with the Samba, no country can outcumbia Colombia…
During a business trip to Quito, Ecuador, I wrote the first draft of “Priorities in Perfect Practice”. My hotel was near an artisan market where the prevalent language was Quechua and the music Andean. I bought a flute called a quena as a souvenir. We bartered in Spanish.
Much of Rio de Janeiro is bordered by water, be it bay or ocean. ” An Octopus On A Blue Note” made landfall via my imagination.
An executive that worked for my company was also an accomplished night club style singer. She arranged “Metamorphosis” in English and Portuguese and recorded the English version as a track on her first CD. Listen to the audio or download:
Priorities in Perfect Practice
Not only a metronome
plays a key role…
At the piano
sits a virtuoso.
He’ll tackle anything…
Note the ivory steps.
They slope upward,
towards a dream door.
He’s rhapsodizing
over which riff
might make
a break thru.
Also, what will it sound like?
In real life
a living room
houses him.
The walls wear ears.
They eavesdrop
on steady solos.
Likewise, a low
ceiling listens in.
Those are his
full scale critics,
besides a
small metronome
ticking away
on a table.
That’s their measure
for trying out
latent talent.
All he has to do
is follow along.
Whether the door
will wind up opening
depends on him.
As to when is up to them.
First published in Octavo
An Octopus On a Blue Note
An octo with a banjo
bangs out just jazz.
He’s deep…two, three
leagues below sea level.
He’s cool—groovy
in a marine green grotto.
But when the tide’s high,
he jams under a jetty.
Currents meet there.
Together they wreak waves
which swinging swimmers
can crawl to, and
“scuba, dubi, do, man,”
sometimes beat out.
First published in A Little Poetry
Metamorphosis
Night is shrinking
into a colony of shadows.
Awakening,
you feel yourself peeling away
a stranger’s wardrobe.
As the chrysalis cracks,
more than morning rises.
Marveling
at your latest likeness
you must wonder who
was clinging to the trellis
at midnight, or
whether it really wasn’t a dream.
For a change,
a butterfly
is taking flight.
Singrar, Sailing Songs
©Nicole Borger
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