“When the communists took over my country, they labeled the music different colors—yellow for soft, relaxing music, green for music to work by, red for music of war.”
An Le, Vietnamese refugee.
Those in positions of power buy pianos,
know that people are ruled through
their stomachs. Keep citizens a little
hungry, and they will work from Monday
to Sunday without complaint. It’s the well-fed,
the fat, who want weekends for themselves,
want to play yellow music on their grand
pianos, plot the next move to keep victory
in their iron-clad, red-music grasp.
~ Diane Wahto
Diane Wahto’s book of poetry, The Sad Joy of Leaving, is available at Blue Cedar Press.com. Her most recent publications are “Persistence,” at Ekphrastic Review, and “Empty Corners”, in Same. She and her husband, Patrick Roche, live in Wichita, Kansas, with their dog Annie, the Kansas Turnpike dog.
November editor, Ronda Miller, is State President of the Kansas Authors Club (2018 – 2019). Her three books of poetry include Going Home: Poems from My Life, MoonStain (Meadowlark-Books, 2015) and WaterSigns (Meadowlark-Books, 2017). Miller lives in Lawrence but returns to wander The Arikaree Breaks of Cheyenne county every chance she gets. Kansas Authors Club.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 
Wow. I love this poem, Diane.
Diane, I like the way you take the cue from the quote and weave color and music together. “Yellow music” from a grand piano is nice—this from a retired musician.