Vocalise

Rachmaninoff could not know

The weight of what he'd done

When he wove

C sharp minor, dissonant.

Three chords repeated soft,

Before a vast

Chromatic descent.

Cluster chords assail as dark.

He bloomed a voice above it.

Oh, how a melody without words

Can speak.

Oh, how this ache grows as a vine,

Twisted tendril of sound

Out of my mouth.

Out from seat of stomach,

Chest heavy, and heart lead,

Through throat wrought and jaw dropped.

Head resting back, I am lost

In the ecstatic ache.

All things sad and lovely,

All unknown, leave my body on air

Until I am hollow again:

An absence I often have not found.

Catharsis is a million filaments of sound.

It's over,

As quickly as it began.

--Alicia (2011)