The Piano Poem by Shelley Hornsby

Father burned the piano last night.
Ordered it out of the house under
The strain of a regiment of men.
Strong arms lifted the iron stung boards
As they carried it down
To the field, and all I could hear
Was the deathly sound
Of a funeral march thumping
Out the pitiful silence in my ears.
I stood there watching as it burned,
Perched precariously on the pyre.
Last bugle call accompanying
The passage of its rights.


Silence met the sparks that flew
And spat with its last farewell.
And I, with childhood's tears,
Stood there and watched it burn for England.
The memories of my mother's fingers
Tapping the ebony and ivory with her magic fingers
But my father
Couldn't bare to hear it's chords again
Dragging out the memories of my
Mother humming along with its keys.
You could almost have heard her play that night
As the piano crackled with the flames
And put up a fight.