Chopin's Death March

Chopin’s Funeral March

A stroke of key and skull in hand,
his friend, piano screams to cease.
The melancholy march birrs on
to strings that hum for sweet decease.

His smashing force upon the keys,
and hair just like a flow’s release.
His hands now stroke upon them soft,
it only ends in masterpiece.

His sweating grip and frenzied stare
upon his keys, never prepared
to be a part of harmony.
A mindless inspiration flared,

and all his heart did spill
until his very gasping breath.
Exquisite sounds of ringing booms,
and all this done, about some death.

[HumanePain]

Wish I could create such eclectic imagery in so few words as you do.

If you read it, it uses a lot of sibilism. This is also akin to the ballad in a sense, except I wrote this in iambic tetrameter.

I hope you enjoy the s sounds, I tried to sort of imitate the humming sounds with a subtle onomatopoeia.

[HumanePain]

Yeah, that too.

[Godslayer Jillian]

I have never been much interested in Chopin. I doubt I'll have the full grasp of the poem until I listen to the piece this poem is referring to.

Oh you've heard it, it's played at almost any funeral.

The "Funeral March" of Chopin, as played in the concert room, is an adaptation of the slow movement of Chopin's second pianoforte sonata in B flat minor, op. 35. The work is so familiar as to need no description. The circumstances under which Chopin wrote it however, as told by M. Ziem, are of interest. Ziem, the artist, had been one evening to the studio of Polignac. There was a skeleton in the studio and among the Bohemian whimsicalities, Polignac placed it at the piano and guided its hands over the keys. In Ziem's own words:

Some time later Chopin came into my studio, just as George Sand depicts him -- the imagination haunted by the legends of the land of frogs, besieged by nameless shapes. After frightful nightmares all night, in which he had struggled against specters who threatened to carry him off to hell, he came to rest in my studio. His nightmares reminded me of the skeleton scene and I told him of it. His eyes never left my piano, and he asked : 'Have you a skeleton?' I had none ; but i promised to have one that night, and so invited Polignac to dinner and asked him to bring his skeleton. What had previously been a mere farce became, owing to Chopin's inspiration, something grand, terrible and painful. Pale, with staring eyes, and draped in a winding sheet, Chopin held the skeleton close to him, and suddenly the silence of the studio was broken by the broad, slow, deep, gloomy notes. The 'Dead March' was composed there and then from beginning to end."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_S...r_%28Chopin%29

[Dark Disciple]

I have never seen a poem like that before. Excellent use of imagery!

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-- Robert Frost

Similar in a lot of qualities, my imagery, recurring theme of death, sibilance, etc.

Robert Frost of course is a master, and my poem pales in comparison.

Both written in iambic tetrameter, cept for one or two words.