Between the visits to the shock ward
The doctors used to let you play
On the old upright Baldwin
Donated by a former patient
Who is said to be quite stable now.
And all day long you played Chopin,
Badly and hauntingly, when you weren't
Screaming on the porch that looked
Like an enormous birdcage. Or sat
In your room and stared out at the sky.
You never looked at me at all.
I used to walk down to where the bus stopped
Over the hill where the eucalyptus trees
Moved in the fog, and stared down
At the lights coming on, in the white rooms.
And always, when I came back to my sister's
I used to get out the records you made
The year before all your terrible trouble,
The records the critics praised and nobody bought
That are almost worn out now.
Now, sometimes I wake in the night
And hear the sound of dead leaves
against the shutters. And then a distant
Music starts, a music out of an abyss,
And it is dawn before I sleep again.
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This whole poem brings up images of a caged bird. He can calmy play the music, but occasionally he loses it, screaming for his freedom. He looks at the sky longingly, wishing he could fly to freedom. He ignored his wife, who went to live with his sister when insanity stuck him. She recalls how he used to play that beautiful music, how the critics loved it, but it did not sell well. She played his records alot to remember him by. He thinks of her at night and cannot sleep anymore. It's a beautiful love story, and it makes you wonder what exactly happened to the man, what drove him to insanity? What drove him to forget the woman he once loved, and forget everything but the music? Well...after all...all artists are insane at heart...
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