from “Tales of an Old Grandmother”
Joel Chace
The tempo marking
Precipitosissimo had never
before existed. Prokofiev’s
old grandmother invented
it, then insisted
he use it.
During the old
grandmother’s youth, people
often flew. As
did she — at
nine for the
first time. Since
everyone’s now grounded,
she offers this:
Up there, night’s
not black; it’s
blue; everything turns
blue. I seemed
a fish, circling,
striking blue glass,
calling out through
the dark blue.
This line of
flying old grandmothers
produced notable crime
busters. The progenitor
learned she could
vary speed by
positioning arms: wide
open, slow; close
to sides, zoom.
That man fleeing
with purloined cash;
that man forcing
a woman; that
man now bringing
a cudgel down
upon a skull:
Bam! Pow! Zap!
Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as Lana Turner, Survision, E·ratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, Golden Handcuffs Review, New American Writing, and The Brooklyn Rail. His full-length collections include matter no matter, from Paper Kite Press, Humors, from Paloma Press, Threnodies, from Moria Books, fata morgana, from Unlikely Books, and Maths, from Chax Press. Underrated Provinces is recently out from Mad Hat Press, as well as Freaks, from Lavender Ink. Bone Chapel is just out, from Chax. White Labyrinth is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil. For more than forty years, Chace was a working jazz pianist. He is an NEH Fellow.