i gather the fractured sunlight,
savouring the feel of it pooling
in my palms, a glistening ambrosia
nestling its weight, safe and sound.
i wish not to forget, but alas, the
12th chime rings; they tug on my
heart and in its fervent rush, i am
stolen away once again.
i wish to keep my heart where it belongs,
for the sun to ever rain on my lonely
parade, to see it upon my horizon once
more, the taste of its sweetness upon
my tongue and on my vulnerable breast;
but i can only package all my regret and grief
into a shimmering glass slipper, a left behind
memoir of that rising octave my life's melody
Music can change
My mood
So quickly
Because
I can listen to a song
That's three minutes long
And be affected
By lyrics
Tunes
Melodies
For years
i have the record playing
And I'm covering my ears
Trying to shut out the thoughts
inside my head
they just whirl and whirl around
like the water in a toilet bowl
drowning out the world
I can't hear the music
And I can't remember why I put it on
Why must there be happiness
When my world just died?
My Daisy, my Daisy,
is gone
For good.
The music dies upon the strings
But lingers on
Like other sweetly treasured things
Here once - and gone.
The breeze that blurs the mirror pool
Cannot erase
The outline of the forest cool
Upon its face.
The haunting fragrance of the flowers
Of yesterday
Not all the intervening hours
Can steal away.
And loving friends we used to know
Nor e’er forget
Although they left us long ago
Seem with us yet.
Early on summer days
I'd wake to my Dad's wedding band
clicking on the ivory keys.
His hymns would nudge me awake off the living room couch;
my camp site when AC was a luxury we still ignored as a family.
There was often no sheet music, no scrawled chord progressions guiding him,
just his hands knowing; finding the keys that agreed without looking.
At the time, it might as well have been
an alarm clock prelude to my chores, the signal that a break
from school could still be spoiled slapping paint on the peeling
exterior of our house as some lesson of work.
But now, I'd speak of this less harsh bugle call fondly.
I'd construct it into conversation so it appeared that
She turned up the weeds without pity, spreading
their roots before the sun. Most of them died,
though a few tenacious grasses rolled over
when she was not looking, and sucked earth
till she found them skulking about, and banished them
to the heap with the egg shells and old tea leaves.
Returning to the scene of the massacre, she placed
a five-tined fork before her, pointed toward
the earth's core. On its step she placed her boot's
sole, and drove its teeth home, tearing living soil.
She did this many times, and in her hearing,
the dark loam whispered in protest. But what
was she to do? One must eat, and the white seeds
in their packet were waiting for the sun.
She carried a blue denim bag at her side,
She asked me
to play something
sweet and holy.
I took the
quivering reed
between my lips
and pressed greensleeves
against her dress,
the gold saxophone,
mother of pearl keys,
her breasts rising
falling in prayer.
The mariachi
trumpets fade with the red gored sun
mellowing at dusk.
Children dart behind,
scuffling in the dust, brown wrinkled skin like
scabbards of lost dreams.
You sit in the dark
a silhouette singing Spanish songs
of lost love and pain.
I hear church bells
in your voice, the lonely pang of night
keeps you drifting
between dreams and sorrow,
of lost opportunities, things unsaid,
actions incomplete.
You lay beside me
Question: what is a silhouette, but an illusion
taken at a slow tempo. How palpable it feels
when time—an empty vessel—no longer fills itself.
You question that silhouette. You speak
at a slow tempo. You ask how urgently and gently are
synonyms. Their music is as familiar as
your own shadow. Ask: is there a word for this
slow tempo.
The thought of her presence (a bit of flesh and love)
Makes the dusk of night the dusk of perfume.
Sudden as a kiss her rings glow ;
Over the dusk strings her fingers flow as a wave.
O the breeze of melody of her heart and that of the night,
The ghost musical that dies into the pang of dream !
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know,
And all her lovely things even lovelier grow;
Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees,
Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.
When music sounds, out of the water rise
Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes,
Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face,
With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place.
When music sounds, all that I was I am
Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came;
While from Time's woods break into distant song
The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.
I AM free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,
Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,
Glad to forget all of the passion of April
Ere it was love-free.
I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,
But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,
I should awake, I should awake and remember
I am my lover's.