Never Begin to Sing (5)

By: Damon Krukowski
November 18, 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).

The Virtuoso

The guitar grew heavy, heavier each day. At first it was enough to shift my position while playing, but soon my legs began to ache from supporting its weight. When I couldn’t bear it any longer on my lap, I began placing it on a low bench covered in cloth to protect the wood. On the third night of this arrangement, the bench collapsed. The guitar was undamaged; its mass had changed and the wood was now a denser material than the floor. It had become impossible to lift the guitar without assistance, and as I travel alone, I had no choice but to leave it where it lay. The nightclub allowed me to extend my gig, for the time being, so the next day I set to work learning how to play the guitar as it lay on the stage. I found a rug, and performed cross-legged, with the guitar before me. I could no longer move its neck. As its weight increased, the guitar began to sink into the floor. The next evening, I lay prone on the rug and stretched out my arms, reaching over the top of the instrument rather than from below. Eventually the guitar sank level with the stage. I lay down beside it now, no longer plucking or strumming its strings but simply stroking its wood. I found that I too was growing heavy, perhaps from the immobility of this new position. The next evening, I did not get up after my performance. All night, I lay beside the guitar, as we sank together deeper into the ground. I could see the lights of the room above me, as far away as the stars on a clear night. When these lights faded, the guitar and I entered a world I had heard about in myth and song, but which I had never believed I would witness. I did not see it, exactly, but felt it seep around us, and then inside us, making us ever heavier. Once it had filled us both completely, I could no longer find any difference between myself and the guitar.

***

Never Begin to Sing (5)

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