Chopin, Yet

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Chopin, despite the cataract of hair,

Awes, not a poser.  What he writes and plays

Sings truth inside his skin.  He is the heir

To honesty bound up inside the haze

Of beauty.  Nose and profile (well, the nose)

Shows what a man must be if he would set

Down facts of soul and love.  He cannot pose

As if he does not know their feelings, yet

He tempts his audience to doubt his heart.

He tempts with falling, slipping notes in creeps.

The cynical, the doubters think his part

Rings false, but they are lured in by his sweeps.

  Perhaps she should not have his feelings.  True.

    Yet they are his and sometimes they are you.

~ Phillip Whidden