Étude in C Minor, Opus 25 no. 12 with Porphyry Shouts
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The Chopin étude rams the room with power,
Arpeggios that swamp and swamp, then swamp
The purple, pulsing chords, each one an hour
Sucked out of his eternity, a romp
Against the silence we call death. The chords
Are all but washed away by hands caught up
In swirls turned into battles from war’s lords,
Arpeggios that lack a follow-up
Except the next one. Then their chords bash out
Away, far, far from rooms, far past the lawn,
The colonnades, far past this music’s doubt
If ever doubt it had, this whopping dawn.
The roar shouts past the panes, the windows, past
The foothills and mere mountains at long last.
~ Phillip Whidden