Musical Language | Musical Ghosts

Musical Ghosts by Joe Pollitt

Dear Editor of The Guardian,

To me, the keyboard is a piano and I the composer; making sense out of letters, the jumbled up words that sound nonsensical. The baloney sounds that shriek from the rooftops and those fluid gobbledygooks, the sloppy jibber-jabbers and mind dingalingers, the domdomdrops coupled with the old Frosbyflop, take-off and flyover.

Fingers tinkering on the ivories ~ stroking the notes with authority ~ gently touching the keys with controlled passion, as the writer tries to make his words speak for themselves. Then all of a sudden the keyboard becomes a drum-kit as it beats out the rapper tapper dodar and double-do-deday with the boom chap tapper, the tile tip topper, the thinga-me-jig, the two time loser, the big fat boozer, the good of the two, the best of the rest, the no good drinker, the top hat thinker, pinker, sinker, linka and dodopatti-day. 

Then the keyboard turns into a violin without strings. A cold slap snapper, a chick flick meeting, a sidedish, swordswipe, tongue-licking-peedee. I'll have a far flung dodee, a fat cat seeme, a boasemassimi dodar, a rum-bum-dobee, a first-time taka, a digga-de-do feedme, a pill-poppin yippee, a silly, dizzy hippy, a down on my luck seesaw, a swing by me Judy, a tea-total jambee, a washedout swinga, alost out dodee, a sweet sandwich eata, a popswinging teacher, and then at the end of the day it was time for a quick snooze infront of the newsbox doda, a snoozeme Granny, a wetdown puppy, a wicked cup of coco, a mocka-choca-medee before bedtime stories and out with the lights before 10pm2am sharp.

I touch-type and punch every key to make sense of the way the world is now, if not for you, then for me.

(For my dear friend | Simon Wajcenberg)