Diane Block
(USA)
Transfiguration
My father began to hallucinate, she said.
He said, They are holding an investigation.
His wracked body crawled into a ball, she said.
And then she said, his eyes shut.
The night we kept vigil he said nothing
His parched tongue craved moisture
The breath rattles grew further apart
Slow, slower then stopped.
So this is Death, she said.
The air trembled.
Did his body tremble, too?
Her eyes traced the lines of his face
Then a tear, one tear, traced
a line of his face.
Night
Black branches spin
skeletal web,
gnarled fingers embrace me.
Poised mid-air,
fallen a long way—
I live here.
That white mask my mother,
how I cry after her.
She knows nothing of this—
frozen and opaque,
only stares
from her hood of bone.
Symphonie Fantastique: Past and Present
Plainview High School
Silver January night
Deliberating no particular reason
Finally pluck music folder from the bin
Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz
Title page
Art nouveau design lettering circa 1900
Now frayed and yellow
Property of Manhattan School of Music
Stamped in upper right-hand corner
My alma mater
Thirty-two years ago
Conductor gives downbeat
Whirlwind bows slapping strings
Whiplashes another conductor had commanded
Notes leap from page
Spurring fingers into infernal dance
Pencilled fingerings: numbers here there
Looks like my handwriting
I note casually
Dismiss as coincidence
Numbers reappear across the page
Demanding my attention
(Could these be mine?)
Marche au Supplice
Bassoon punctuates the pizzicato strings
There it is:
Bassoon pencilled above the bar
Swirling
It rises
Whispers
You wrote this
Valse, macabre
Surrealistic Waltz I wrote this
As it was written
As it is written
Embraces me
Whirling, reeling, revelling
Dissolving
Thirty-two years
Psalm: to a Violin
arm of my arm
body of my body
you wear your cracked skin
cradle crook of elbow
fold into me
your scroll my lid
your peg my bone
your bridge my tongue
you burn vowels
green vein
wound the skin
treble strings
my gut
sing sotto voce
wound to taut pitch
blood quaver
pulsate inner lobe
when all is spent
a frame of blue
who will have you
when I am gone?
arm of my arm
blood of my blood
body of my body
Half Harvest Moon
Sunken heavy, you breathe October earth
reflect blush autumn burnt orange mist
I understand how – weary of holding yourself aloft –
you let the weight of you drop
to almost touch the earth. Now, you straddle
the horizon, recline with laconic grace,
an invitation to swing the dark ether
or, perhaps, mount the boat of you
to drift the echoing sea
never to return
When Red Leaves Turned to Ice
What brought this lumpen sack of black to fold in
Bend to Third Avenue pavement, frozen in prayer
The gray windows stare in wonder
At the black sack frozen at an angle
Bend to Third Avenue pavement, frozen in prayer
His black coat melded to pavement, the December night
The black sack frozen at an angle
Was he there when red leaves turned to ice
His black coat melded to pavement, the December night
Will he still be there
Was he there when red leaves turned to ice
When ice melts to green
Will he still be there
The gray windows stare in wonder
When ice melts to green
What brought this lumpen sack of black to fold in
The Glass Unicorn
She sank frozen in a cocoon
frail arms trembling
slicing the air.
She wore lavender silk for him,
the gentleman caller
and when he called
barely did she trudge across the floor,
club foot dragging its weight to the door.
You must be Laura, he said.
Eyes lowered, she nodded.
His kind voice poked
the walls of her cocoon.
Surely there must be one thing you care for.
Yes, there is one thing.
Her pure, high voice broke
a din of silence.
She held a glass unicorn
in her delicate hand.
See how the moonlight shines through, she whispered,
no longer trembling.
Blue Roses he named her.
He saw her eyes were moons
and summoned her to dance.
But I cannot dance!
(for the club foot would shame her).
She slowly, slowly
succumbed to his arms
to follow his lead
shed her cocoon
and together they took flight.
He blessed her with his kiss.
Was she redeemed?
Blue Roses, you are different from the others
she heard him say,
but I am beholden to another.
The walls of the cocoon thundered
she stared down, down into dark
his footsteps trailing out the door
saw the glass unicorn
still glinting in the moonlight…
Golden
Twilight falls. Someone’s playing an accordion
Parisian-style … afar
its doleful tones float the lilt of wind
tenderly, as the bedroom curtains flutter,
or as the stone, delighted by release,
improvises its dance along the skim of pond
His breaths are even now,
his brow swept clean and smooth
by golden air. She sits without stirring
peering at his golden face, no trace of line;
she thinks There is no time,
only deep pools of night
only long golden days
to swim in, as twilight falls
January 1, 2013:
____________________________________________
Diane Block is a professional classical violinist who received her training at the Manhattan School of Music, with a Master’s Degree in Violin Performance in 1980. It was there, at MSM, that she developed an interest in Romantic and Modern Poetry. This interest was shared by close musician friends at monthly musical and poetry salons.
October 28, 2013:
Diane has free-lanced as section violinist in the metropolitan area for the last 30 years. She retired as Orchestra Director on June 21, 2013 after serving the Farmingdale School District on Long Island for 25 years. Presently, she and the cellist Terry Batts comprise the violin/cello Duo Gemini Journey that has performed at Cornelia St. Café and other venues in NYC. She also maintains a private violin studio in her home.
Diane met her husband, poet Bernard Block, at the poet Emilie Glen’s home in 1982 and has been connected to the NYC Poetry world ever since. Originally she read other people’s poetry (and still does) but it was Bernie who encouraged her to write her own, which she has for the last several years.
For Diane there is an intimate link between classical music and poetry. One seems to flow out of the other and her experience of both art forms feels very much the same.