Prelude To a Fugue

Painting by Chidi Okoye


Prelude to a fugue


A prelude to a fugue than
for no poet of lyrics
can disarm the sublime
or dangle the carrot
of an all seeing eye
fathoming the inexplicable
as it ignites like a rapture
or overthrow as in movement
between now and the next.
Unlucky philosopher
born musical and visual
in a country of stubbornness
wanting to be-
to be a poet of salt,
reaching out and finding
the sea liberating
all things temporary,
rupturing into a mountain
of graveyards,
abstract- yes, but palpable.
Before point of arrival
mistaking is easy
as imagination fills
with latent reflections
as if layers of meaning
represent a summoning
to what is not meant
foraging tipsy as dissonant
into this prelude to a fugue,
independent but similar to
with no clear distinction
between parts.

2.
Mary, mother of Jesus
What would you know?
I choked on a piece of bad gospel
and when I woke,
my name was covered in mud.
We laughed together. Drank some wine.
He asked me for a favor.
I said yes. He knew
where he was going
and took to his destiny
like a bird to the sky.
What's all this about?
Every contradiction is a paradox
when your life is a thought crime.

3.
The truth is derivative.
The lady of the bleeding heart is dead.
She leapt to her death romantically
variable feet first
off the bridge of postmodernism,
glued to a collage of empty beer cans

4.
At the poet's market
the stalls were filled with feet.
It was April, the poetry month
and the vendors were donating
their proceeds to the Academy.
Simile winked at Sestina.
When he touched her stanzas
repeatedly, she blushed
out of meter and adjusted her syntax
but not before taking his money.
Numerous poets caught, clapped.



Scott Malby

Posted over on Strange Road