Ludwig van in the Night. Or the Ode to Joy in D Major. (But not both.)

   Ludwig van visited yesterday. The night was soft as eiderdown.

In my drawing room, awash with dark light and stardust, he played the Ode to Joy

On a vintage Stradivarius. It was the one piece by him that I grew up on.

I knew every note by heart. Played over and over,

 the scratched shellac record pouring its heart out at 78 rpm,

as I watched Dad wind up the gramophone again and

Again, changing the pin every time.

Or continuously on the baby grand piano in our school auditorium, by our crazed

Music teacher: the strains, ingrained in

The neural jungle of my brain,

Left a constant ringing in my eardrums as we marched out

of the hall, in a single file, silent, after morning mass,

Back to class.

He spoke my tongue. I was so flummoxed that I almost

Forgot to take an autograph but was reminded

Just in time by Mom.

 

I was torn. "Ludwig," I exclaimed, "You don't look anything like you in your portraits!"

He said, "That'sbecauseMyleftarmhurtslike 

fuckbecausemyearsbuzzallthe timebecauseIcan'tplayanymore.Look!"

And he stretched a twisted left forearm, pale, with swollen blue veins, towards me.

I was torn.

Between his music and his face.

And I knew then. I knew that

I would never ever know my own self.

The innermost workings of my own

Bloody mind and soul. (Random forest be damned!) Or

 Body, for that matter.

While I hunted for a scrap of

Paper, frantically, for Ludwig to sign,

my Mom scolded in the background,

"A pen! A pen! Give him a good pen! How can the poor fellow

Sign an autograph without a proper pen!"

 

Yeah! Right! Ya think?! Of course, it's not a dream! No-o! Why else would

I hear my father's velvety baritone whispering in my head (sounding nothing like my Dad in life),

"Listen to him! He couldn't hear himself! That's why you must listen to him, not to your mother! Your mother's dead! She'll never sing again!"

(And so are you, Dad!! 
So are you…

your gramophone weeps in silence…)

 

And my head jerked up. I looked him up and down; looked long and hard at Ludwig van, who looked nothing like his portraits:

"My dear man," said I, "A big fan, I am!
   but here's the doozy:

you flail your arms and legs, throw yourself back and forth, give the tempos,

You wanna pluck every string, sing every song, and

In the insane grand exuberance swelling and crashing on the inside of your ears, you think you can conduct an

                                      Orchestra you cannot hear.

So

it's either you,

Or your Ode to Joy in D Major, that I can stand in the hellscape of my mind,

But not both!"

   (He nodded and winked, the sly old bastard,

And vanished into a van Gogh sky painted over with missing ears…)