roll over
by Steve Gerson
1. Ludwig van Beethoven
Something is truly amiss, Johann. I sense an apparition, a spectral augury, a dark wraith . . . eavesdropping. I was executing a particularly challenging etude, a presto con fuoco demanding speed and dexterity. As I reached for a C in the 8th octave, I felt it, the presence leaning over my right shoulder, studying my composition. I, in fact, smelled treacle, sickeningly sweet, perfuming my piano room, but noxiously. Remember our Bohemian idyll when you and I strolled the gardens on Schlossberg hill in Teplitz in the August heat, the Empress and her retinue befouling my presence with her audacious airs? That is the aroma assaulting me now, lavender overripe. And this aura befouls me as well. I feel it consuming my musical notes, devouring my scale progressions, ingesting my soul.
2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He speaks to me of a wraith. How sad is my good friend to be troubled by phantasm, visitants of a netherworld. I can only surmise that these hallucinations stem from his recent bouts with syphilis, cirrhosis, even sarcoidosis, all resulting from his excesses. Drink, women, overwhelming imagination, all leading to Ludwig's constant malaise, now to this perceived presence of a dark emanation. To think of his glorious mind so deteriorating is maddening to me, he having so exquisitely set my play Egmont to music. Now, he has become the earthly manifestation of my Faust, some perceived demon seeking his soul! Oh, the humanity!
3. Chuck Berry
I guess I laid on that pomade a bit too heavy this morning, my man. My do swept back, piled high in a cool cat pompadour, 'cuz this dude Ludwig, crazy name, is sniffing and patting at his nose with some kinda dainty lace hankie kept in his brocade sleeve. And man, I'm gonna copy his clothing style for some of my stage wear, you better believe it. And that hair! Lawdy. Wild, crazy, lightning-struck, zapped. I wanna see that style hairdo on some of my dudes when we be wailing. But it's his music that's happenin', daddy-o. I’m watching his fingers flying over them ivories, hittin’ notes I never heard nowhere. I think he’s plinking away at some wild I V vi iii IV I IV V variation of chords, maybe in D major. I can’t hit those notes on my six-string, but I dig that I V IV chord progression. I’m stealin’ that, for sure. I mean he’s got my temperature risin’. I’m about to blow a fuse. My heart’s beatin’ some far out rhythm and blues. All I got to say is, keep on strokin’ them keys. Roll over Beethoven. Tell Tchaikovsky the news.
Photo fo Steve Gerson
BIO: Steve Gerson’s chapbooks include Once Planed Straight; Viral; And the Land Dreams Darkly; The 13th Floor: Step into Anxiety; What Is Isn’t; There is a Season; Have Not, and Who Am I Today.