I've just requested Up Up and Away
by The Fifth Dimension from the piano lady
But play it slow... "Slow?..oh!" she says
with a heavy New Jersey accent, eyelids
half-moon-half-smokey-cabaret-cool o.k. she walks away
nodding in her black spandex

I imagine a beautiful flight of tender emotion
from this slowed down tempo...I can only imagine

"We'd - like - to - o - pen - this - set - with - a - piece - called
Up - Up - and - A - way" she says in her best sultry voice, each syllable
a starlet looking to be discovered

           Starts...piano plays...slow nice...like
           Mister Rogers' fake jazz...beautiful schmaltz
           some notes...out of tune...o.k....makes it...even more
           ugly/beauty/slowly...tune....amazingly...contorts
           into background...leaving foreground...to deconstruct
           into schmaltz...of itself...I
           am left...traveling the piano keys...with my
           slow image ballooning...playing with
           the tempo of my...flying in
           my beautiful...my beau-ti-ful...over everything
           flying...over everything that's wrong...and
           everything that's doubt...and all I am
           is white keys...over black keys
           in a restaurant...where no one ever heard of...
           or thought of ever slowing...and I...am free...
           and schmaltz...and out of tune

Edwin Torres Author Page

Pub. May 2000