A MAN saw the whole world as a grinning skull and cross-bones. The rose flesh of life shriveled from all faces. Nothing counts. Everything is a fake. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes and then an old darkness and a useless silence. So he saw it all. Then he went to a Mischa Elman concert. Two hours waves of sound beat on his eardrums. Music washed something or other inside him. Music broke down and rebuilt something or other in his head and heart. He joined in five encores for the young Russian Jew with the fiddle. When he got outside his heels hit the sidewalk in a new way. He was the same man in the same world as before. Only there was a singing fire and a climb of roses everlastingly over the world he looked on. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: STATE'S ATTORNEY FALLAS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS CONTRA MORTEM: THE WHEEL OF BEING I by HAYDEN CARRUTH MISSING THE BO IN THE HENHOUSE by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE BIRDS OF VIETNAM by HAYDEN CARRUTH FOREST FLOWERS by ROBERT FROST THE JOBHOLDER by DAVID IGNATOW |