Best Concertina Poems
FINGERDANCE
I remember finger dancing as a young ballerina.
Why I could, leap, twirl, fly in the air to the sound of
an orchestra or even a concertina!
As many decades have quickly whirled away, with the
beauty of the seasons.
I am trying it yet again, and find, I am still that little girl,
with glistening brown hair, and pink ballet dress, once
and forevever, an accomplished ballerina, who needs no
reason!
The young days of pink tulle and net have never, from ny
soul, drifted very far away.
And, if only you were here, you would see me now,
fingerdancing, across the walnut, shining table in
every which conceivable, patterned way!
9/13/2021
THE RIVER OF NO RETURN
The Rue St. Germain is alone and still
though cool is the night with a summer chill
the fog from the Seine comes right up the hill
and street lamps dance the whole night through.
Their halos aglow in the night time air
gendarmes will provide that the peace stays there
you reach out for love, and she takes the dare
and then she is staying for you.
So why is she here? You question it not.
She has everything, but you have naught.
at Chez Martins where you first met her eyes
she made it plain, her world is bought.
....
There's liars and lovers who'll wink at you
as they, hand in hand, do what lovers do
you walk to the Seine and it's all brand new
because she's standing close to you.
And her eyes her eyes reach out for you
you feel her eyes reach out for you
And then you die
in love you die.
You stroll by the Seine in a magic night
and know in your heart it's a love not right
from off of the Seine is a burst of light
that's given from a summer moon
a concertina plays it's echoeing
with all of the still that a love can bring
and little you care of a morning sting
that she will leave you much too soon.
You've seen on the silver screen before
her eyes but tonight they show you more
of little girls lost, and here looking for
what's never beneath the moon.
And her eyes her eyes reach out for you
you feel her eyes reach out for you
and you promise her, one night will do
and never to tell how it's been for you.
and then you die.
In love you die.
© ron wilson aka vee bdosa the doylestown poet
The aroma of mellow gardenias, the dance of a ballerina,
the sound of an Italian concertina
Purple, shaded, toe shoes that glide across a stage with
footlights and an applause of praise.
Tender thoughts to remember, in winter, Spring or even
a blustery, Midwest September.
Birthdays that my parents bought me corsages for, and
many relatives with presents at the door.
Birthday dinners on ivory and gold linen with candle lights,
such elegance.leaves, my soul, sparkling bright.
Decades later, I recall, my little daughter, Maria born three
days prior to my birthday, was the most blessed gift from
God~overall!
I may be eight-five today, but I still am full of life and to plan
to play, full-out, till God calls me home on my final day.
3/13/2023
"Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:29)
THE BLIND GIRL
(painting by JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS)
Let me lean into the light
feel the fulgent sun on my face
I came here to rest
for some time
before I go asking for alms again
They say we sing well
we sync well too
my sister and I
She's hiding inside my shawl
safe from all sorrows and stress
She says the sun is 'blinding'
To her maybe
As for me, it caresses and nuzzles
in a way nothing else can
The Spring breeze brushes me
as I fondle that sweet grass
Sometimes I grow 'green'
because I can't admire God's beauty
like you
but here, in the silence
I find peace
She says she can see
a double rainbow
I can feel its brilliant glow
The rain is past
and so is the darkness
It's time for the Sol
time for my soul to rise
Oh! Something stills me
A butterfly alights!
I am moved beyond words ~
A miraculous sign beyond sight
I clasp her hands closely
we're going to Winchelsea
with our concertina and chorus
"Pity the Blind"
But right now, right here
no one should pity me
I am sparkling with hope
the Light has found me
We're joyful together
We'll face any weather
As the cattle graze
and birds gather grains
'Forget-me-not'
Forget us not
We're here to leave an important imprint
an impactful impression
We ask and receive
daily divine blessings
Now, we can go on gospelling
dispelling fears through our hymns
The shimmer after the shower
refreshes and revives
Joy is found here
beneath the sun
beneath the rainbows
Love is where 'Light' is...
MONSIEUR L'VAMPYRE Parisienne Walk
One spring and sunny day I set my sight
behind my darkened lenses, feigning night,
so I might stroll in my own way
and see what's life in light of day,
my thread put to my back, I travelled light;
when Paris comes to all its greenery,
there's not a sight that means so much to me
as flowers holding to the hair
of Mademoiselles out ev'rywhere,
and laughing children, that's how life should be.
The beat of Paris leads a steady pace
and if you stop, you're holding up the race
there's not enough time in a day
to walk all of Champs Elysees
and so you miss the smile of ev'ry face.
But there are places few would care to go
with streets so narrow, darkness is the glow,
where yesterday's not in the past,
but here and now, and here to last,
with cobble stones laid many years ago;
a world of silence, far from natures care,
a place of echoes, snapping here to there;
the signs of life flow past your feet
and to the Seine, just down the street,
but leaves its scent, it's with you ev'rywhere.
This is a time, more than a place to be,
the soul of Paris few can ever see,
the very secrets of her heart,
where light of Paris had its start,
and left here for the very likes of me.
You hear her whisper in the mid of day,
or you might hear a concertina play,
but all that's Paris surely lies
right here for you before your eyes,
and it's the dream Parisians want to stay.
© Ron Arbuthnot
BACKSTREETS OF PARIS - MONSIEUR L'VAMPYRE
One spring and sunny day I set my sight
behind my darkened lenses, feigning night,
so I might stroll in my own way
and see what's life in light of day,
my thread put to my back, I travelled light;
when Paris comes to all its greenery,
there's not a sight that means so much to me
as flowers holding to the hair
of Mademoiselles out ev'rywhere,
and laughing children, that's how life should be.
The beat of Paris leads a steady pace
and if you stop, you're holding up the race
there's not enough time in a day
to walk all of Champs Elysees
and so you miss the smile of ev'ry face.
But there are places few would care to go
with streets so narrow, darkness is the glow,
where yesterday's not in the past,
but here and now, and here to last,
with cobble stones laid many years ago;
a world of silence, far from natures care,
a place of echoes, snapping here to there;
the signs of life flow past your feet
and to the Seine, just down the street,
but leaves its scent, it's with you ev'rywhere.
This is a time, more than a place to be,
the soul of Paris few can ever see,
the very secrets of her heart,
where light of Paris had its start,
and left here for the very likes of me.
You hear her whisper in the mid of day,
or you might hear a concertina play,
but all that's Paris surely lies
right here for you before your eyes,
and it's the dream Parisians want to stay.
© ron wilson aka Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet
FREEZE - FRAME OF QUEBEC CITY
Time-capsule towers over St. Lawrence:
Heights of Abraham look imperiously down
On the Ile d’Orleans spread over the river,
Chateau Frontenac’s fairytale frivolous turrets,
Le Parlement’s serious severity,
Antique town with narrow cobbled streets,
Overhanging shoulders of timbered gables.
Clipclop of caleche leaps back centuries,
Cobblestones echo concertina and fiddle music
About log-driving men with peavey poles.
L’ete indien - a world of rust and copper leaf,
Montmorency Falls and the legend,
All frozen in time and in winter’s snowy grip.
The grey mists of a sleeping dawn, cosetting birds still
wrapped up warm in bed, watch a stoat emerge from
its burrow and sprint across his meadow, like a caterpillar
making humped back bridges in Concertina motion
The stoat approaches the discarded shape and sniffs it
for signs of danger, life and food. In that order. Looming
like mountains on the ground and covered in a Turin
Shroud of frost, are a child's pair of crumpled denim blue
jeans, vapoured brittle-stiff with ice crystals overnight from
the nearby stream . Which still wends it's course beneath
ice-capped plates, upon which faux steam rises up like
volcanic springs.
The shape also manifests a pair of very small dumpster boots,
made for the tough little boy of tomorrow. The set is
completed by a vibrant red jumper, a little too big for the lifeless
form it covers. This hoar, this frost of disjointed frozen dendrites,
rests calmly upon this physical testament to the now peaceful
soul that lies within. Whose lungs beneath lie dormant and past
caring, whether or not the air is fresh and cold on its failed
breath. Alibaster-marbeled skin profers one hand raised in a
Post mortem wave. And a lid's refusal to fully shut one eye,
desperate to remain in contact with a living world and deny
the truth of having passed. What the eye has really become is
a dull reflective mirror for the twitching movements of an inquisitive
proboscis. This draws the eye of a man, standing at a man's
full height, able to see across two hundred paces of a frost
bitten meadow and light upon the vivid colour of red, set against
a backdrop of rime white. Eventually, a voice from the ether
confirms the location by a frozen stream and supports the
recommendation to keep the mother away. The devastation
of a hundred heart-stopping caught breaths yet to be lived.
Before the tears can flow and the utter destruction begin
The startled stoat runs away from its own reflection. Back
to the warmth and safety of its hole, in the bank on the Stream.
And the grey mists sadly watch the final act, before its last few
screaming tendrils are burned away on the coming sun
I am at your side - a faithful dog.
You are my master - my ship in dock.
You care for me, a god besides...
If you left me, I'd be rudderless.
Don't leave...
I am at your side, in this, a well
of unimaginably harsh sound.
Noise is the bending of ears
that do not want to know...
and you should never leave.
Do not leave me, your dog,
in troubled times
with wailing sounds
or concertina, or whatever.
Believe me... Stay.
----------------------------------------------
Julia Ward,
8/8/2015
Contest - Your best poem with metaphors
Sponsor - Silent One
7th place win
BACKSTREETS OF PARIS (Monsieur L'Vampyre)
One spring and sunny day I set my sight
behind my darkened lenses, feigning night,
so I might stroll in my own way
and see what's life in light of day,
my thread put to my back, I travelled light;
when Paris comes to all its greenery,
there's not a sight that means so much to me
as flowers holding to the hair
of Madamoiselles out ev'rywhere,
and laughing children, that's how life should be.
The beat of Paris leads a steady pace
and if you stop, you're holding up the race;
there's not enough time in a day
to walk all of Champs Elysees
and so you miss the smile of ev'ry face.
But there are places few would dare to go
with streets so narrow, darkness is the glow,
where yesterday's not in the past,
but here and now, and here to last,
with cobble stones layed many years ago;
a world of silence, far from natures care,
a place of echos, snapping here to there;
the signs of life flow past your feet
and to the Seine, just down the street,
but leaves the scent of pissoires ev'rywhere.
This is a time, more than a place to be,
the soul of Paris few can ever see,
the very secrets of her heart,
where light of Paris had its start,
and left here for the likes of you and me.
We'll hear her whisper in the mid of day,
or we might hear a concertina play,
but all that's Paris surely lies
right here for us before our eyes,
and it's the dream Parissiens want to stay.
the robin hops from the tips of the rose bush
spilling snow dust
sprinkling skeins of early dew
dusting with its uppity tail fan
a caterpillar
softly dousing concertina
then it trips up the clothesline
stops and grips it in its claws
sways and balances with its tail fanning out
chirps clucks tweets
and repeats itself
all the way down again
and up the scale
comes back once more to skip a note or two
and tumbles
sweeps past the old toy bicycle leaning against the wire fence
the claw marks hardly visible on the spray of frost-like snow on the balustrade
light ephemeral peripatetic
the dulcet flexions rising and falling on the tympana without breath of motion
or vibration
crisp colliding notes rising and falling
as the first tentative drops of drizzle before the rain
the robin gone to sing full throttle on wing
© T. Wignesan, Paris, 1997; from the collection: “Poems Omega-Plus”, Paris, 2005.
The sea breathes
Gently in and out,
It seems to sigh upon the breeze.
Waves sparkle
Like liquid silver,
Dappled diamonds on restless swell;
Advancing
Gently up the shore,
Relentless, driven by the moon.
Aromas
Of rich dark seaweed,
Distinctive halogenic nose.
White egret
In rock pool dipping
While oystercatchers scream on by.
Eternal tide,
Pumping in and out
Like measured concertina strokes.
Mesmeric.
I could watch for hours,
Lost in timeless fascination.
dark horses, flashing wild eyes & lolling tongues
minions of masters blind secrets, colliding on
judgement day
the watchmen, pencils poised, stream data weighing
heavily on balance sheets, despite muffled screams
invisible ants regurgitate from force fed robo-calls
somewhere, below the border between heaven & hell
Jesse Ventura, head bobbing in disbelief, watches
concertina wire, growing quicker than phases of the moon
as freedom ebbs endlessly, no flow in sight
radio waves, linked directly to the message
flash headlines mocking our escape
in time, herds of cattle, single-file, cling, head-to-tail
a slow shuffle, over the abyss
.......on election day
© All Rights Reserved
Tonight, I miss God, though I doubt he IS;
All sense of Providence stripped away
Like my wife’s gray smock last time I saw her
Walking naked and welted to showers
From whence the sole cleansing is soul release
From this chamber of horrors which now is
Our life. Dirty Jood they now call me,
Spitting, and striking my dignity down.
The world around me seems strange viewed through
Coiled concertina razor wire,
Cut-off, as it were, from all engagement
With beauty, birds, billowing clouds, blessings.
O God, departed One, return delight’s
Remembrance in Redemption, if You care!
© 2016 David W. Palmer
UDELNAYA MARKET 6:30 PM
6 30 and not yet all gone -
Shadows lengthening,
Suns light in eyes, still
Difficult to see the end .
Flowers of the day now dried petals,
Empty boxes, blowing papers.
Basket-seller struggles
With armfuls of wickerwork;
Cigarette butt ends burn out;
Concertina man collects up
His small coins to leave.
Day-blankets spread on ground
And covered with junketry
Leave their prints in the dust.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Note.
This is the day’s end when the busy Udelnaya flower market is closing.