"Broken Music" by Corey Marks

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( September 17, 2019 [Broken Music]( [Corey Marks]( Every turn I took in the city pressed me deeper into the warren of what I hadn’t said, the words thickening, constricting like a throat as I moved through the streets, oblivious to traffic and high walls, the rain gutters’ crooked mouths staining the pavement, human faces mooning past me, indifferent, eclipsing my silence with their phones, their apparitions floating—where?—and everyone, everyone talking to the air. Until around a new corner on a narrow street I’d never seen a piano began to play from above a window-muffled music at odds with itself, the rush of notes splintering like glass across a floor then picked back up, piece by piece—first one hand sorting along the keys, then the other joining, out of step, irreconcilable, unpunctuated by frustration, or shame, but stung with the urgency to make what couldn’t yet be made. How could anyone learn their way out of such blunder, how could any song be gathered from those shards grating like something lodged in a shoe. My ear cocked into the air, I thought of floating up, balloon-like, to look. I felt cartoonish, a marvel of the last century’s animation already out of date. I could have gone on like that, listening, loosening into the song, but then the piano stopped. My ears filled with waiting— car horns and chatter, the wheeze of a stopping bus, the city going about its filthy exclamations, its abandon. The window darkened as the player shut the light over the sheet music, and it reflected another window across the street that in turn reflected a bit of sky, a plane’s bright sideways thought trolling across the pane music once broke through— delirious and awful and unabashed, and so unlike what I’d wanted to say swollen now, a contrail coming extravagantly undone, or a balloon full of glass. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2019 by Corey Marks. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 17, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. ["Broken Music" by Corey Marks.]( About This Poem “In writing ‘Broken Music,’ I thought about how the walks I so often take can both encourage and challenge inwardness, and I found myself returning to [A. R. Ammons](’ notion that a walk externalizes ‘an inward seeking.’ The poem began as a description of wandering through increasingly unfamiliar city streets but soon started tracing a meditation on reticence and daring. I found myself interested in how the speaker’s worry propelled him on an aimless circuit that finally led him to overhear someone else's unabashed music that jangled him out of his preoccupations.” —Corey Marks Corey Marks is the author of The Radio Tree (New Issues, 2012). He is Director of Creative Writing and Distinguished Teaching Professor at University of North Texas. He lives in Denton, Texas. [more-at-poets]( Poetry by Marks [The Radio Tree]( (New Issues, 2012) “Water Music” by Robert Creeley [read-more]( “City Visions” by Emma Lazarus [read-more]( “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence [read-more]( September Guest Editor: Eduardo C. Corral Thanks to [Eduardo C. Corral](, author of Guillotine, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2020, who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a [Q&A with Corral]( about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our [guest editors for the year.]( Your Support Makes Poem-a-Day Possible Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. This free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on the weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038