Never Begin to Sing (3)

By: Damon Krukowski
November 4, 2017

One in a series subtitled 10 Prose Poems about Sound by HILOBROW friend Damon Krukowski. Republished with the author’s permission from the 2004 collection The Memory Theater Burned (Turtle Point).

At the Café Detroit

They came to me and said, old man, we want you to sing your songs for us again, everyone has forgotten them. But I said: If everyone has forgotten them, how do you know you want to hear them? I am old and tired of singing for those who do not care. But they continued: We remember the subjects of the songs, we remember the feelings of the songs, we just cannot remember their details. Please sing us your songs again. But I said: If you remember the subjects and the feelings, that is enough, the rest is for an old man to take to his grave. But they protested: Old man, we loved your music when you were young, and we were children. Our parents loved your music, but now they are dead. We want our children to hear it. You must sing for us again. I was moved, but I knew what lay ahead, so still I resisted. I said: If you really loved my music, you would remember its details as well and not have to bother me in my old age, to recall such painful memories. Here they sensed more than they had known. But old man, they asked, can the songs that bring us joy bring you pain? (These were no longer children, but nonetheless young enough to ask such foolish questions.) I told them: I will not sing for you, but I will tell you my secret. With it you can sing songs yourself, and suffer through life until you too are an old man who no longer wants to sing. This is all I know: It is songs of pain that bring people joy. I am old and tired of pain. And you, who know no pain, can never bring me joy. So they let me be, at last.

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Never Begin to Sing (3)

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