Arlene Corwin Poetry

              I Used To Be

(an ageing jazz pianist/singer observes)🎹👩‍🎤🧘‍♀️

I used to be interested in voicings:
No longer or, not anymore.
I’m much more primitive and noisy,
You can call me grandma Moses,
Taking handicaps, the wonders and the curiosities
Of change and how they come with age.

I used to be concerned with beauty.
Now I’m not so much. See it as a vanity.
My touch at the piano of no interest and importance.
So much seems of little relevance
With the advancing years.

My ears, of course,
The ones alert to harmonies, to melodies –
It pleases me to feel
That they hear, can still
Put flesh on, even broaden or elaborate,
But in a way that comes from temperament and talent mine.
I may not shine the way I used to but,
I’m getting used to that:
The ups and downs of being flat,
The unforeseeable I cannot formulate
But yet anticipate in all its glory,
It becoming an old story.

There is no ‘used to be’
There’s only now and me
And doing things creatively.
That’s it!
I Used To Be.5.4.2019 Vaguely About Music II; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin