The Score

Jack Kristiansen

 

            a lifetime

of practicing

            medicine

 

            but now

this angel at the desk

            will allow you

 

            through the doors behind her

only

            if you can demonstrate

 

            that living has taught you

to play

            without hesitation or mistake

 

            the cello part

of the Death

            and the Maiden quartet

 

            but she offers you

neither a cello

            nor a score

 

            merely

the rebuke

            that you’ve lacked the grace

 

            to bring your own bow.

 

 

Jack Kristiansen exists in William Aarnes’ composition books, where is he working on a developing series that he thinks he will call Something Discovering Itself: Poems after Klee.  Poems from this series have previously appeared in  A Millennial Sampler of South Carolina Poetry, Tipton Poetry Journal, FIELD, and The Literary Review.  

 

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