Dissonance

The conductor begins his day job

Throws on a coat, clean, a casual black

Enters the hall, his permafrost of alabaster skin

Glowing gloriously under the artificial evening

To sickly hues of seeming jaundice and overtones

Of mottled Grey, colors familiar with death

He wields the conductor's baton,

A spear protruding from a cloak of black

And nothing else

Yet all seemed very natural

There was life in this man

However hard it was to see

And so it began

The darkest of concerts to be

Flutes open up, delicate fluttering

Reminiscent, of swallows in spring

Violins creep into the picture

Willows swaying with the wind

The swallows embrace freedom of flight

Circling the whispers

Of slender willow branches

A harp begins its serenade

Suspended time sets itself on this scene

Dreamy scents of lavender fields

In proximity to the harmony of birds and trees

But the cello enunciates its intentions

And evening dawns

Darkness swoops like a falcon

The swallow lingers on

Oh naive swallow...

The harp changes its choral backdrop

Now arpeggios that smoke of funereal lullabies

The double bass chokes out heartbeats

In counts, the bird's are numbered

The conductor's thin lips

Now a parabola

Trombone and clarinet in tandem

The sepulchral mist of pallid nights

Billows softly into the scene

Igniting fear in our little swallow

The loudest sounds are unheard.

The conductor's baton has shifted its movement

The spear comes to life in posthumous melodies

The swallow panics! Flies in scattered direction,

Blinded in moonlight's piercing glow

Straight into deaths arms

Branches of the willow

Impaled

All the wrong notes were being played

But the crowd, dormant all this while

Erupts into manic applause

All trees will die one day

A new one springs from where its forerunner

Began

And birds will set nests on these

Baby hatch-lings mature into swallows

And pay tribute to Dissonance's cycle

Close your eyes, child

Hear the tunes of the dying in your sleep

Dream, you will be a conductor one day

Or perhaps one night,

In presence of fading moonlight.