The Requiem of a Dying Piano Man

The Requiem of a Dying Piano Man:
Absalom von Sorette’s Last Song


I. Prelude
The piano man who lived in Chesterdale
once told me
“Living is exceptional!”
I thought he was crazy.

His arthritic fingers danced
Above ebony carved delicately
Into keys of white and gold.
Not black, he said, but gold.

The piano man played blues
And asked me
“Isn’t living just remarkable?”
I leaned on his piano and traced my name into the wood.

And his fingers kept on dancing
To the song he always played on
Keys of white and gold.
“Gymnopedie”, he said, “isn’t life incredible?”

The piano man wore a beard
And whispered to me
“Ad astra per aspera.”
He said the music took him to the stars.


II. Schickshal
The piano man told me one day
We would go to the stars on
A staff of music.
Tuesday nights he took me there
Riding on the tails of eighth notes.
The piano man always cried
When we saw Satie in the sky.


III. Pluto
The piano man named me Pluto.
He said Pluto was the part of a person
That destroyed itself to be reborn.
I told him Pluto was just a planet.

The piano man didn’t like parties.
He hid in the corners from overdressed men
Behind the great pianos and hummed songs into their frames.
He said if they absorbed the music
Then someday the pianos would know
Great fingers too.

And every Tuesday night in smoky bars he played the ebony keys
On a piano so old it was a half step flat.
But the piano man’s fingers were magic
And from them came God and music
Sent past the Heavens to Pluto.

And the piano man whispered to me
‘Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.”

The piano man’s words were music
Written beneath the notes of Satie
That only he could see,
That only the piano man’s magic could play.

The music echoes on Pluto,
Whispering words that turn into dancing music.


IV. Tu fui, ego eris
The piano man died in an oak tree
On Tuesday night.
His body swung with a rising star to Satie’s
Gympnopedie.

The piano man whispered to me
"Would God I had died for thee,
O Absalom, my son, my son!"

Pluto is a fading light amongst dying stars
Where I visit only in my dreams.
And the piano man’s last song
Is fading away in my memories,
Seeping through the cracks of my reminiscences
And existing only on Pluto
As the piano man’s voice whispers in my ear
“Living is exceptional.”