Andreas Grassl

Down the streets of Sheerness and the shores of Kent,
stumbles a cardboard maestro in a black suit.

Like little flashes of the past, as in a film,
he carries a grand piano on his back.

What is it in his pace that makes him, per se,
Scatman, Strnad, a homosexual?

A nurse in Dartford calls him Mr. X,
yet all mute maestros churn out Tchaikovsky.

All words are delirious when wet.
This virtuoso still plays, despite reports

that indicate Bavaria. And there is proof
he’s not a German. Flattened by haste,

what part of loneliness still translates roughly
“Mir gahts gut?” He does not speak, except this:

Madness in blue August, wet bleached words,
an orchestra in themselves, clangorous yet still

as a sketch on paper or a charcoal instrument.