Poetry Monday #5

Check Your To-Do Lists Readers,

I have a gloomier poem for the Open Mic today. I wrote it back in high school when I walked into the auditorium to see the stage bare of anything but a single baby grand piano.

 Lonely Pianist

I am a lonely pianist
Playing to rows of empty pews.
I pound the keys but hear only silence,
I cause chords to hum and see only dark.
There’s harmony, but I know no balance;
I make beauty, but no one will hark.

Time, persistence mature my skill,
 But what is skill without passion?
I weave crescendos, but no one will care;
The notes burst from me to die on the wall.
My song is as insubstantial as air,
With no one to love it, its not there at all.

The last piece echoes its refrain;
The only applause is my own.
A small tear I cry, I’m not overjoyed;
These tears come from a deep sorrow.
  My precious art is fading to the void,
The world may have murdered it by tomorrow.

- Burkley Rudd