The Black Concerto Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

The Black Concerto

The dark keys reigned
Upon the torrid harpsichord,
Determined to destroy - disdained
By the composer who begged The Lord
To be free from the horror; devoid of light,
The firmament sobbed in the Godless night,
And wept upon the face of the tortured bard
Who beckoned as he played,
Revolted at the sight
Of the crypt in his yard,
To where his black mind strayed.

He pleaded and pined,
As the demons dined,
For his lover, for his wife,
For a dim, dying star
From his happy, former life -
As the pyre expired from the final bar.

Then the curtains met with snow
In the solitary room,
Revealing as they wavered with the horrid glow
Of his destiny captured
In his funeral's gloom;

And the player fell, enraptured,
In an ecstasy of pain -
And the night consumed his psyche, utterly insane,
As a demon laughed at his soul - forever undone.

And no sympathetic bell
From a church saw the sun,
As the sunless sun fell
Through the leafless trees,
To the tune of a lifeless, baleful breeze.

John Lars Zwerenz