I've really had quite enough of my failure to proofread. This corrects
the "persons" and shall be the last, prometto--
ON HEARING AGAIN CATHY BERBERIAN
(1925-1983)
There was something off the edge
the musical nuthouse glory rising
above the risk of cacaophony
or let's try clothing, the frilly white ballgowns,
the Mozartean white powdered wigs,
every performance a costume party featuring
something that did not fit but still draped with ease
a perfect garment
she could model anything
could turn it around
any of it clothing music
the title page said Monteverdi
McCartney Weill Sir Arthur Sullivan
no matter
all four married in an instant
Life, swelling like love in the voice heartbreak
from a hidden place she held close but unrevealed
seeped through "Surabaya Johnny"
bled through the white Victorian gown
so she was the deflowered bride of cellular memory
remembrance programmed into her
when the song is not comic there is Hell
a massacre in every high C in every trill
in her baro-coco "Ticket to Ride"
the Armenian baby dancing on the point of a
Turkish bayonet.
Because it was her name.
But still the humor, the loving that
even post-divorce Berio could write for her
after their legalistic end was desolemnized
and she walked on alone toward
the dreaded common end where he
whom once she loved
would one day have to join her
with a ticket to ride
to the faeries in the bottom of the garden.
But we might care.
KTW/6-16-06
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Ken Wolman kenwolman.com rainermaria.typepad.com
"Don't be a baby, be a man. Sell out."--Lenny Bruce
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