Phantom Violinist of Majestic Theater
written by: Christina Ciufo
@ChristinaCiufo
Majestic Theater is senescent,
inauspicious, and despondent.
Yellow-brown pine trees,
barren and crocked, stand beside
the theater doors, shawled in silver tinsel,
glass ornaments, and spiderwebs,
while on the charcoal-maroon ceiling
dilapidated, oil-painted angels
fly and sit on clouds,
wait for the performance.
Maroon curtains rise on stage –
revealing a young man,
lugubrious, callow,
inscrutable, and unsettling.
Sapphire-charcoal face,
graceful, stolid, and saturnine,
like a statue’s face, reflects
ruinate and hollowness.
He lifts the violin’s bow –
its sharp, silver hair
slowly oscillate
side to side, awakening
music from its slumber within the strings.
His pale, gelid fingers,
like icicles, press
and moving up and down –
playing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Each note as alluring,
sophisticated,
and ensorcellment,
as Winter Solstice moonlight,
from the stage,
echoes its solemn, solicitous hymn.
The phantom violinist ceases,
bows, grins, and dissipates into snow –
December’s clamoring wind
blows the snow from the stage,
down the aisle, through the doors,
and empty, silent streets
and across the gelid, sapphire-ebony river,
listening to “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” on a cold December night.
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