Running Late Quotes

“Piano


At 66 Sandringham Crescent
an upright piano was being eased down
a long flight of stairs by three men
all wearing off-white overalls.
Backward, staccato, two stepped
descending
one
stair
at
a
time
till the taller of the two men
began to collapse in slow


slow slow motion
and the piano
leapt
to the hallway's rising floor
crashing its memories of music:
simple tunes such as 3 Blind Mice,
as well as great meaningful sonatas
of profundity and faraway,
into a scattered anarchic jigsaw
of free-loving volatile
meaningless sounds
fading
till the stricken piano
lost its memory entirely.


After the ambulance arrived (too late)
one removal man lit a cigarette
and sensing the wide-awake stare
of the householder


tapped the grey ash, with great delicacy,
into the cupped hollow of his left hand.”
― Dannie Abse, Running Late