Chamber Music
fran carris
Not all music soothes the savage man.
As distance diffuses the notes, the melody
drives on into countryside--
carefully disguised by the gentle caress
of a flower and the whisper of cottontail.
We denied the dissonance, the cacophony
after all--
everyone knows there must be a classical resolve
a screen imposed.
Screams.
we denied the screams.
But the chorus and the conductor knew the horror
of the music from the chambers.
If there were any alleluias,
they signaled the cessation of
the living dead
--the finale to
the degrading mock of life
--the last move in
the cruelest of games.
Would that they had all been poets
they may have felt their notes penetrate.
Transcending all boundaries
laying living ghosts to rest.
White steeds bearing hope
would have turned eyes upward
to validate their fate as the chosen children.
Would that they had all been poets
they might have wished their screams
burned into stone
and known
that their story would fail upon pages
of unborn years.
Surviving memories
however buried
--so painfully surfaced,
recall their horror,
recall their pain.
The music from the chambers
lives in their tears
and dies with our denial.