Forbidden Colors
by Michael Doyle


In the forbidden colors of the sheltering sky
Some composers aren't discussed until they die
Ryūichi Sakamoto opened the door to an energy flow
That began with Debussy and would ebb and flow

Of the Yellow Magic Orchestra in all of its influence
In a hip-hop and worldbeat enmeshed confluence
With a thousand musically bladed knives his music grew
Into an elixir of immortality sampled from what he knew

Whimsical layers of emotion between beauty and terror
The soul falters but knows truth however the body errors
Delicate and pensive the melody sought with the fingers
Finds a thunderous appeal that soars and dares to linger

The possibility of people who intermingle in vivid tangles
Knows its questions and answers despite wars that mangle
There is the secret of knowing there is more and wanting more
To be played out sensually across the notes of a film's score

These are the obsessions of a world caught in its war
And never daring to search through the veil that's wore
Like a butterfly kiss felt on the water's edge of the beach
It's felt most of all inside the mind where reality won't reach

In that startle of quiet, there is felt a vivid articulation
Where words fail and emotion find their best narration
In the notes the pianist plays, puzzled by fear and elation
That magical place where two souls between meet communication

Our desires to find a bigger slice of life refuses to die
Though the loving, fearful bride hides her face as she cries
Hand crash down in a crescendo that crosses a fateful bridge
And ascends on their musical journey on heartbreak's ridge

All this confusion that somehow helps each of to understand
The points of known return that life will come to finally demand
Imagined into dreams fulfilled instead of what is our reality
There we are again, peeking from the curtain toward immortality

Paperback novels offer their romances that beg us to swoon
And we swear our allegiances under a silver light's moon
But in our parents' footsteps we see how relationships flail
And in the end, we know that ours too will, and just as well

Existence echoes and refutes in ruffled contradictions
Like puzzles of mumbles that we know need their faint elocution
Ryūichi Sakamoto hinted the truths difficult and hard to know
Tumbling beats and melodic lines that trace beneath life's shadow

(c) April 8, 2023  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved