“Bloody Murder” & “Looking at Rubenstein”

→ PUBLISHED IN ISSUE NO. 35: FALL/WINTER 2025

Bloody Murder

As I take a nap, kids on the playground

Outside scream and shriek with uncontained

Fury—little kids, exhilarated by the noise they’re

Making, of diamonds on glass, of vein-popping

Delirium, of blitzkrieg torment and ecstasy. Nothing is more

Important than stopping Justin from running to home

Base or from sneaking up to tag Nicole “It.” All history, all

Well-being, depend on this moment, now;

Nothing else exists or ever was of this hoarse

Magnitude. I can almost remember this brimming

Excitement, wracking my whole being, the saved

Soul clambering up out of the body as in those

Romanesque sculptures adorning a church in Arles.

---

Looking at Rubenstein

I like the look of old, liver-spotted hands

Playing Rachmaninov with complete agility

Pounding out the chords or whispering the pianissimi

Thundering through the descending octaves or

Singing like a bird on an endless trill.

We know old dancers are too weak and spavined to dance

And athletes have only two or three good years

But writers, painters and pianists only get better

With age, the white-haired, raddle-necked profile

Lifted arrogantly above the precisions

Of the supple hands working the huge musical loom.