A chaconne is a composition in a series of varying sections in slow triple time, typically over a short repeated bass theme.
"On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."
- Brahms on Bach's Chaconne in D-Minor For Left Hand in letter to Clara Schumann, 1877
Chaconne for My Lover’s Hands
i.
Regret I wore raw
a silk dress, poured to follow
each fold & slouch of peridot flesh
that met the suede
touch of fingertips
nails nibbled down to nub
the unexpected flange
of a lover’s hands
conspiring to caress
or to crowbar me open
like neon, the unsettled buzz
of lust for ravish holds tempo
ii.
Terror I wore raw
into rooms without windows
the beauty of barbarism
being all ways it could have been
otherwise
nothing binds us
to what is brutal
but a choice
lust for ravish shears
the safe silhouette, the story of luggage
packed to leave him
semiprecious plagiarism
of affections past
unsecured from a boat
useless life rafts
iii.
Regret I wore nothing
swore the image
of his hands on my hips
would not stab me
like the dry stems of flowers
tucked into boxes, the death of over-admired
objects hurts to touch
or be touched
by such familiar thunder
when rain bruises us with kisses
because it must
let us rust
into lust for ravish
or what rushes me into chapels
where Joan of Arc once knelt
in a village named after a flea
and the itch of this hairshirt
is just longing
for me
The Warm-Up Routine: I listened to this chaconne and picked three words that kept whispering somehow from the melody and particular measures. Then I wrote into those words and their associations. I do things like this every day as exercises to loosen images and clumped thoughts before getting started on writing. For the most part, I don’t keep or use or even revisit these many warm-up poemings (my notebooks are full of them), but I appreciate when other poets share their practice routines so I thought I’d share mine from yesterday. Which started with googling Trifonov performances and then discovering this fascinating thing called a chaconne, and then using it as a bridge into my warm-up exercise.