[Martin Elster]

One Summer Day

An allusion to Beethoven

While walking through the woods one summer day,
he glanced along a river, clear and bright,
saw bubbling notes like dappled fish at play,
and dashed them off that night by candlelight.
Meandering down coniferous-scented trails
where chickadees and tree frogs made such noise,
he didn’t hear a thing except the scales
and chords and cadences that were his toys.
He couldn’t hear the leaves in the aspen thickets,
the deer flies buzzing round his graying hair,
the sound of countless madly rasping crickets,
nor the peals of far-off thunder in the air.
Yet who can miss those leaves, that summer breeze,
that river rushing through his symphonies?

(Appeared in The Society of Classical Poets.)

[Martin Elster]

String Theory

Since everything’s made of curved space,
the universe came into being
from nothing, for everything’s nothing.
So while spending some time at my place,
since all that we are is vibration,
if we chance to be face to face,
perhaps about to embrace,
remember we’re nothing but string-loops.
When by accident fingers enlace
and our bodies get closer, imagine,
as we vibrate in other dimensions,
you’re my cello and I am your bass.

[Martin Elster]

Rushing to the Gig

Walking the dog, then rushing to rehearsal

in traffic slow as slugs, exhaust from cars

making him gag, the place as far as Mars,

to play Variations On a Theme of Purcell

might seem to some a big ordeal, for what?

It wouldn’t have been so terrible had he

made sure to read the call sheet. For you see,

after he got through walking the small mutt,

he took him home, then headed for a city

which wasn’t where the orchestra was meeting.

When he realized, his brain cells started beating

him up. But it was not such a great pity,

for then he raced and got to the right place.

It would have helped, though, to have brought his bass.

(Appeared in Light.)

[Martin Elster]

The Cymbal Player

As bows and fingers quiver strings,
as lungs and lips whip up the air,
as notes soar on great falcon wings,

one player, seated in his chair
like a finch hid in a maple tree,
as if the creature wouldn’t dare

trill out above the symphony
(perhaps in fear of being caught
by a raptor high above the lea),

begins to rise like an afterthought
amid the pianissimos
and, like a hunter’s rifle shot

as bright as ninety-nine rainbows
of overtones, he spreads, then hits
two plates together. The ether glows

like sunlight through the woods. He sits
back down. And yet the clang still rings
and darts and dances, flutters, flits

and, for the merest moment, clings,
then fades away like all brief things.

(Originally appeared in The Chimaera.)

[Martin Elster]

A Change of Tune

While Abbie ambles round the food emporium
a shower of shallow ditties from the ceiling
renders her skull an empty auditorium.
She reaches for a carton of Darjeeling
and slips it in her shoulder bag. Is stealing
from stores that spew such pabulum so wrong?
As Abbie nears the apples, an appealing
melody makes her stop. No shopworn song,

but Bach — far out! — played by E. Power Biggs.
She grabs some miso (joy of man’s desiring),
St. Matthew Passion fruit, preludes and figs,
a wedge of Brandenburg. (Perhaps they’re hiring!)
But now she has to leave, her bliss too brief:
Muzak again. And, yes, she’s still a thief.

Variation of L12:
a few selected sweets. (Perhaps they’re hiring!)

[Martin Elster]

Cherry Blossom Reverie

On Hearing Keiko Abe Play the Marimba

As mallets frolic, leap and fall
and blur into a cloud of flowers,
the rosewood fills the spacious hall

with dazzling white sakura showers
borne from the tree we picnicked under,
all our minutes, all our hours

passing like this tuneful wonder
quickening my memory
and, wild as taiko-drumming-thunder,

we danced beneath that floral tree
that shook the garlands from its hair.
That night I dreamed a glorious sea

of petals washed ashore, the air,
the land, our very souls in thrall
to blossoms blowing everywhere.

I see you whirling in the squall
as mallets frolic, leap and fall.

(Appeared in Cahoodaloodaling and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.)

[Martin Elster]

The Snare Drummer’s Plight

The highlight of the evening is Bolero.

The snare drummer begins the famous beat,

the marrow of the land of the torero.



The players, who have sprayed themselves with Deet,

ignore the insects swarming in the light

or lighting on the scores. The music’s bite

and lyric passion build each bar, with singing

strings, winds, and brass — while buzzing bugs seek meat.

One gently touches down and starts to eat
blood from the snare drum player’s nose. The stinging

clings like a picador’s sharp lance of worry.



How can he stop to scratch? His part must never

cut out. Time’s poky arrow will not hurry.

Bolero! May it live — not last — forever.

(Appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.)

[Julie Steiner]

Quick Change

     backstage at The Nutcracker

The oboe sighs its last insinuation.
Applause. I tense. I ought to hear her bare
feet in the hallway. Flutes start shrilling. There!
The harem-girl trots up for transformation.

I fight the hooks-and-eyes and perspiration
that hold her clothes on. Something rips. I swear.
Applause. No time. I hurriedly prepare
her tights. The music’s much too fast. Damnation!

Applause. Just one more song to go, and I’m
still fumbling with the buckle of her shoe!
We hoist the massive, domelike skirt in place.
I fasten it. Applause. I paint her face
with Mother Ginger’s clown-lips, just in time.

From gorgeous to grotesque, so fast.
From gorgeous to grotesque, so fast. So true.


First published in Lucid Rhythms. Since this poem bewildered a lot of people, I should note that there is applause between each of the following variations in Tchaicovsky's Nutcracker ballet: Arabian dancers (Coffee), Chinese dancers (Tea), Russian dancers (Candy Canes), French dancers (Mirlitons - Marzipan Flutes), Mother Ginger/Gigogne and her Polichinelles (Ginger Snaps - small clown-children who emerge from her giant skirt). Traditionally, Mother Ginger is played by a man in drag, but in my daughters' youth ballet she was usually played by a teenaged girl who had also been cast as an Arabian dancer.


Here's a sequel, a few years later:


Final Performance

     backstage at The Nutcracker (2011)

It hurts to watch her watching them. It's plain
she'd love to join the other girls her age--
the dainty, tutued Mirlitons onstage.
Her clownish greasepaint doesn't hide her pain.

She's next. Her heavy hoopskirt will contain
Polichinelles...and yellow-purple-sage
bruising down one leg. I try to gauge
her stamina. I only ascertain

her stubbornness. She knows this is the last
Nutcracker her failing heart will give her.
The music starts. She radiates delight.

I smile. Then freeze. Miss Sylvia recast
that high-kicked skip as walking. Jenn! I shiver.
She'll high-kick if it kills her. And it might.


She'd just had a heart catheterization a few days before, hence the bruising down her leg (it had gone in through a femoral artery). Thanks to her heart donor, my elder daughter is now a college graduate, married, and living happily in Toronto.


Depending on how much time you have, someone whose name rings a bell also published a very long poem inspired by Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms.

[Martin Elster]

Julie - I've seen "Quick Change" a while back on Metrical. I loved it then and still do. It was nice to read it again! "Final Performance" is disturbing and very well written. I remember your long poem at The New Verse News. I enjoyed it a lot and will read it again later today. By the way, I've played The Nutcracker more times than I can count. I've also played Chichester Psalms several times, too, both in its original full orchestral version and also the chamber version. I think The Nutcracker is perhaps Tchaikovski's best piece. Chichester Psalms is one of Bernstein's most enjoyable pieces, too.

[Martin Elster]

That's a fine pantoum, Fliss.

Discovery Concert

HSO, January 16, 2007, 10:30 a.m. at Bethel AME, Bloomfield, CT.

Bright colors, green and blue and red, like stars
in space fly to their eyes from the stained glass
***while the children listen to
the symphony as sweet as candy bars
and bitter as oppression. Woodwinds, brass,
***percussion, strings speak through

the atmosphere of this small church today
commemorating Martin Luther King,
***whose message still rings true
despite the fact mankind has a long way
to go before that dream’s what all folks sing.
***Like an island that’s in view

a good ways off (we all sit in the ship
that’s heading there), that vision features trees
***with fruits of every brand.
The journey will be quite a lengthy trip,
but not as hard as scaling hills on skis
***or tough as trying to land

on some distant planet circling Betelgeuse.
The children — skinny, fat, black, brown, and white —
***hear wild harmonious sounds
and know inside that, like these tones that fuse
and blend within their minds to cause delight,
***their dreams shall have no bounds.