Stephen Register
Le Révélateur
Vous illuminateur.1
Rekindler of an aspect gone dormant.
This dimension of mind and inquiry and suffering.
You put music in me:
Dylan Thomas, and Страви́нский.2
Vous sauveteur.3
Wrenched wide the cellar door long rusted shut.
Revealed a library of forgotten vintages,
Aging, becoming, waiting, refining,
Waiting,
To one day be selected and served.
Blood wine warm shifting in the lamplight.
Cool stone and musty racks cradling
Le Pin and Pétrus
Under layers of dust
In a dance of shadows.
Vous réparateur.4
You returned music to me.
Lux Aurumque5, and Канди́нский6
Stretched out my gnarled fingers
Upon chromatic clusters
Now subject to my press. My hammer.
Vous criminel!
Broke in and set me
Ablaze.
Trespasser, arsonist,
Burning down my throat.
Vous chirurgien.7
You took out my heart and
Replaced it with fire.
1 You illuminator.
2 Stravinsky
3 You rescuer.
4 You repairer.
5 Light and Gold, choral piece by Eric Whitacre.
6 Kandinsky
7 You surgeon.
Stephen Register is a Track and Field coach at Cumberland University, graduate of Yale University and Belmont University, and author of the military memoir Meantime: The Aesthetics of Soldiering.
Le Révélateur
Vous illuminateur.1
Rekindler of an aspect gone dormant.
This dimension of mind and inquiry and suffering.
You put music in me:
Dylan Thomas, and Страви́нский.2
Vous sauveteur.3
Wrenched wide the cellar door long rusted shut.
Revealed a library of forgotten vintages,
Aging, becoming, waiting, refining,
Waiting,
To one day be selected and served.
Blood wine warm shifting in the lamplight.
Cool stone and musty racks cradling
Le Pin and Pétrus
Under layers of dust
In a dance of shadows.
Vous réparateur.4
You returned music to me.
Lux Aurumque5, and Канди́нский6
Stretched out my gnarled fingers
Upon chromatic clusters
Now subject to my press. My hammer.
Vous criminel!
Broke in and set me
Ablaze.
Trespasser, arsonist,
Burning down my throat.
Vous chirurgien.7
You took out my heart and
Replaced it with fire.
1 You illuminator.
2 Stravinsky
3 You rescuer.
4 You repairer.
5 Light and Gold, choral piece by Eric Whitacre.
6 Kandinsky
7 You surgeon.
Stephen Register is a Track and Field coach at Cumberland University, graduate of Yale University and Belmont University, and author of the military memoir Meantime: The Aesthetics of Soldiering.