4′33″

I woke up late in the middle of the night
at four-thirty or so in the morning.
The wind was howling like Chester Burnett
but there was no rain to dance naked in.

I winched myself into an upright position
and put on my Gressingham duck down dressing gown.
My mouth as dry as a cream cracker in the Sahara,
I set off for the kitchen and a glass of blue cow juice.

Halfway down the stairs I saw it ~
like an apparition manifesting itself without warning
or a phantom with no Parental Advisory attached,
there, in the hallway, my dad
playing the piano in his pants*
or rather, not playing it,
for the lid was down
and the key was on his tongue.

This was very appropriate ~
with my dad it is not what is said
but the things that are left unsaid;
unpicking the meaning in silence.

I sat down next to my dad
(the stool was long enough for two)
and we listened to the wind;
a half-hearted burglary happening
somewhere down the road;
and Armand the beautiful barn owl
too-wit too-wooing his haunting aubade.

B>R> 09/03/2016


* by this I mean that my dad was playing the piano whilst wearing some underpants, not that he was playing a miniature or toy piano located inside said pants. That would be silly.