Back in the Spring of 1974, if memory serves, I had one semester of Class Piano at Glendale Community College. My recital piece was Bach’s Minuet in G. A few bars before the end my mind blanked and I froze. Almost instantly it cleared. When I resumed, it was on the beat, as if I’d inserted a rest to build up suspense. The relieved crowd applauded heartily.

Backlit Sonatas

Bonus Footage, mete Duress
Brahms and Bach, relieve our stress
Airs as light as toasted Eggo®
Aspirate our woes allegro
Cantos and concertos drawn
Catch the aspect of a Swan
Knowledged folk, from Quite to Nada
Keep–some can, and some cantata
Languid chords with which we’re blest
Let us f l o a t and pass the test
In a world of Pain and Mess, a
Taste of tunes may decompress

Usually when I select words of seven-letter length for the acrostic bookends it’s because I intend to write a sonnet. Sonnets are fourteen lines. I may well have intended to do so when I originally laid out this page, but when push came to crunch today I used the KISS principle. No matter what you’ve heard before, the civilized KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. This layered, necessarily-murky page needed, I felt, all the Simplicity it could get.

There are two awful puns in the poetry. You, dear Reader, are welcome to ignore them if you wish.