Impromptu No.4 In A-Flat Major Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Impromptu No.4 In A-Flat Major



Freedom to choose, oh yes, I can choose
to focus on translations - or write a poem
and delight in singing lines, feeling guilty
about my escape from tortuous life

I may not escape my job of grinding words
and lines, crunching melody, rhythm and
sound - leaving meaning only - which
pays the bills and buys pretty things

Reading discordant and dissonant texts
that hurt ears and eyes - but all choice
entails responsibility for consequence:

Who can be free in choosing between
the devil and the deep blue sea, why al-
ways negative outcomes irrespective of
choice? If you do you suffer, if you don't
you simply suffer another way

Freedom means choosing between all
kinds of suffering - whatever we do, the
result is guilt and misery, meaning we
can only choose how to deal with life

Smiling while praying for quick release or
cynically surrendering to life's vicissitudes
bowing in bitter resignation - freedom be-
comes a choice between attitudes

Acceptance or rejection of every condition,
it's tiring to be angry all the time, easier to
laugh, La Comédie Humaine is fun, we all
fall down and get up a million times

Crying would spoil the mask we wear, lay
our secret feelings bare - we can gravitate
towards laughter wherever it rings, as long
as we can resonate with its happiness

In spite of sinking in quicksand, we can sing,
until we are beheaded at the guillotine or
hung upon a cross, we can be as pious
or as raucous as we choose

I choose piety because it is more beautiful,
if our lives have to end in tragedy, I want
mine to please with harmonious lines -
listening to spiritual renditions of

Schubert - Impromptu No.4 in A-flat major,
Boccherini's Minuet, Debussy - Clair de
Lune - while taking leave of life to
continue existence somewhere
beyond Planet Earth

beyond this universe where visual forms
suppress the sound of metre and melody,
only one meaning allowed, symbols
reduced to define a reality

Stripped of all emotion, where association
and connotation are outlawed - we are
changed into a workforce bearing the
yoke of life while being robbed from

Imagination and feeling...

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