Best Phonograph Poems
lost in the twilight hours
the twilight years
longing for the past
a closet door opens,
I reach inside
wrap myself in his old sweater
his Aramis scent
still clings to wool
puts me in a trance
and the aged phonograph
still works
as I dance to our song
“Without You” by Nilsson
I can’t live
if living is without you
I can’t give
I can’t give anymore
no, I’ll not forget the evening
his face as he was leaving
for work the night before his stroke
I keep Aramis in the house
to spray my pillows
as I drift off to sleep
without you, my love,
without you
just sounds and scents
that make no sense
A Renga for Poetry Soup:
Meander
Time and the river
Endless silver morning
Autumn leaves float by
Shimmering streaming mountains
Pines swaying in constant winds
Morning mirror
Another gray hair
Ah! the wind of time
Spring's last daffodil
Plucked for a dinner paty
Diamond blue fragments
Reflecting off stream waters
Another moonrise
Sunset colors disappear
Shooting stars
Campfire sparks
Fresh fish and conversation
Embracing shadows
How many friends have vanished?
Canyon echoes
Retirement time
Facing all the could-have-beens
Tears in whiskey
Quietly at the gravesite
For her long dead daughter
Rolling ocean waves
At the sunset horizon
A ship disappears
Dry pine needles underfoot
In the distance, tolling bells
The sound of a car
Approaching - disappearing
Sleepless night
Between the windowsill plants
A single moth, dry as dust
Cloud shrouded moon
Moire patterns fill the sky
Wandering ghosts
Great grandfather's photograph
Fading before my eyes
Dried flowers
Holding a spider's web
Sunrise
Children building sandcastles
The sound of waves and laughter
The old phonograph
A song from long ago
A shaft of dust-light
Sitting on a redwood stump
A logger counts his wages
Stopping to listen
An unknown bird's mournful song
Fern embroidery
Seeds on the wind drifting by
Tea kettle whistles
In the dazzling sunlight
Achingly white billow clouds
Ring of blue
A drone of mid-day falling
On the autumn wind meadow
A hawk ascending
Call of triumph echoing
A trout in her talons
Smoke from the hermit's cabin
No one remembers his name
Winter rain
The dry emerald brook
Resurrection
Waking from a flight filled dream
Facing the machine filled day
Watching the moon set
Chaotic starshine appears
Orion's embrace
Singing satellites sparkle
Between the winter branches
River of wonder
Filling the child's eyes
Christmas morning
Bright snow on the open field
Melting in the winter thaw
All that I can find
Of the homesteader's church --
The empty window frame
Spring breeze rustling the old tree
The sound of grass and lilacs
The old woman
Serves herself a cup of tea
With her memories
Forest boulder
April rain
Forty three years of marriage and still you make my heart beat strong
I never wanted to be anything else but your wife and loving song
Together we walked, jogged and trotted but most of all we danced,
to the rhythm of our first hello. Every loving act was a show of love;
When we were young we danced between sleepless nights and drank
the brew of life as if it were a fox trot of maelstrom haze;
Then the kids left home and we found ourselves alone again,
Phonographic unused cylinders of time crooned again
with love songs from Edith Piaf;
You wrapped your arms around my waist and gave me a beginners taste
Life had been good to us but oh how we lived it in such haste...,
Then we got a second chance, and we did it just so
losing ourselves on the living room floor,
we danced like newly weds on their wedding day;
That was the last time we danced together without goodbyes,
today all I own is an old phonograph, and yesterday's slow sighs.
July 13, 2021
Words speak life! Words are not mute.
They give wings to ideas and how thoughts commute.
Words take a feeling and are sent to convey
A passion or meaning in all that we say.
Words resonate power, they create an impression
They give substance to love and a voice to expression.
In their varied and intricate methods of sharing
Words define people and deserve shrewd preparing.
Words are a healer or words are a sword.
The companion of kings, and what fools can't afford.
Words are a needle, from the depths of our hearts
Like a phonograph blaring, our choice and foul parts.
Words ought to speak truth, but words can lie
They can free the accused or sentence to die.
What you say matters more than all else you possess
Words will govern your future and dictate duress.
~In A Day Like Today~
(Sonnet)
For winter,kind of cool here,yes,it was
Very nice today,completed quite some,a bit
Then just relaxed,reflected 'long,did sit
After many chores I've done,took a pause
Read in 1927 Dr.Seuss marri'd Helen Palmer
In 1927, King Tut's tomb was discovered too
Many events in a day like today
Befell.Some good,some bad,catchy scar or star.
Turn off TV.Only depressing,joyless shows
Today,writing here another new sonnet
Now,again,for a third day in a row
Mulling over,just surfing round the net.
In 1877,Edison his crank'd phonograph play'd
In 1981,famed,actress Natalie Wood died.
Dorian Petersen Potter
aka ladydp2000
copyright@2015
January,15,2015
The small antique shop beckons to me as if calling my name
I hurry to enter with great anticipation
The chime above the door provides an eerie greeting
The store is aglow with articles of times past
I pass from aisle to aisle my eyes darting from relic to relic
I see high top shoes with white laces
I see brushes and combs with pearl handles
I see pictures in boxes of families in fine clothes
I see a doll in the corner eyes staring blankly ahead
I see worn dresses on racks with lace collars and bows
My journey through time continues as I move on in haste
I see a stringless violin in a black scuffed up case
I see silverware with fine bone handles
I see pocket watches with long golden chains
I see hundreds of tiny bottles that once held fine fragrances
I see scratched phonograph records strewn hither and yon
I see fine tools of the trade in hand crafted cases
I see rows of fine china all hand painted with care
I see a faded picture of a child with long golden hair
Suddenly I pause as my mind starts to reflect
Everything before me shelters a story of long ago
They are not useless items that I view but the relics of lives past
Each article once the personal possession of a living breathing soul
With a new respect for the articles before me I move on
Ghostly images of faces now accompany each piece that I see
If I purchase just one it must be displayed with the utmost dignity
For its original owner will have bestowed its care to me
I leave the shop with my new treasure all neatly wrapped
The chime above the door signals my departure
The stale aroma of the shop is replaced by the cool evening air
Life, as fragile as the tiny piece of crystal that I carry, goes on
Copyright 2007 Charlie Gragg
the yuletide came
in the voice of crooners
Please Come Home-
I’ll Be Home-
Santa Claus, Santa Claus-
which placed me directly
in front of a speaker
the RCA Victor phonograph
with the stylus needle
that every year kept joyously
repeating itself
and like herald angels
from the kitchen
butter infused cakes and pies
carol our nanna's psalm
taste good raw
taste good cooked
demanding we lick the spoons
Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable”
by Attila Ilhan
translation by Nurgul Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that you’re like nails riveting my brain?
I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions.
You are indispensable; how can you not know
that I burn within, at the thought of you?
Trees prepare themselves for autumn;
can this city be our lost Istanbul?
Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness
as the street lights flicker
and the streets reek with rain.
You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Love sometimes seems akin to terror:
a man tires suddenly at nightfall,
of living enslaved to the razor at his neck.
Sometimes he wrings his hands,
expunging other lives from his existence.
Sometimes whichever door he knocks
echoes back only heartache.
A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ...
a song about some Friday long ago.
I stop to listen from a vacant corner,
longing to bring you an untouched sky,
but time disintegrates in my hands.
Whatever I do, wherever I go,
you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ...
Are you the blue child of June?
Ah, no one knows you—no one knows!
Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ...
perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy?
Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain
that leaves you blind, beset, broken,
with wind-disheveled hair?
Whenever I think of life
seated at the wolves’ table,
shameless, yet without soiling our hands ...
Yes, whenever I think of life,
I begin with your name, defying the silence,
and your secret tides surge within me
making this voyage inevitable.
You are indispensable; how can you not know?
Attila Ilhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist and reviewer. Keywords/Tags: Turkey, Turkish, Translation, City, International, Leaving, Depression, Absent, Absence, Parting, Separation, Distance, Loss, Break Up, Soulmate, Soulmates, Love, Lovers, Companionship, Passion, Desire, Longing
love sits
in that frozen phonograph of life
a broken record
playing the same bit of song
over and over and over
not knowing when to stop
not knowing when to start
it’s a hard feeling
on this record player
that always skips our song.
i waited and waited
for you to come out of your shell
and when you didn’t
i called the nutcracker
but that little wooden man
just didn’t show up
so i tried to do it myself.
i’ve always said i have no muscles
so you’re stuck.
i’ve jammed the catch to your little box
lined with foil
and you’re locked inside
locked away from me
indefinitely.
maybe in time
the locksmith will come ‘round
or maybe in time
you’ll run out of supplies
and force your own self out
but until that maybe-time
i’ll move on
and try to find another song
that the needle doesn’t skip and jump
that doesn’t have a scratch in it
like ours does.
only one man can fix it, you know,
and he’s stuck in a shell
lined with foil
with a jammed lock
too scared to break out
and i won’t wait anymore.
gun shot alligators
scrambling fall dissolve slo-mo into mosaic pieces scraped together of the fishwife’s sawdust floor
sipping red neon earth quaked insecurity shakes when’ll the next run’s steed come forth
till I happily forge a carthaginian peace with the muses’ universal militia fragmented ragtag band playing on some dead main street candy striped phonograph
gun shot alligators eating my holy corduroy’s
after blending juices in backdoor cabooses track far and wide
I still got sex not sure I’d bet on it if a den of
erotica showed up in the night
acceptance my lord- else be carved up left for dead
at the hands of a hatchet wielding prideful dormouse licking champagne from silver laces of some battered systematic boot
Children of the upper crust
upon the earth...........
that must be us!
They draw a circle on the ground,
so they can dance the moon around,
and then they draw another one,
so they can promenade the sun.
Put lightning bugs in mason jars,
so they can twinkle like the stars.
Why do you always come around
to moralize and fuss and frown?
"Because I have no inner child
I'm just a parent,always riled,
When I see children having fun,"
But it's party time the work is done!
They made a barrel full of tea,
with jujubes for you and me.
They even brought a phonograph
the wind up kind to make you laugh.
but you have never laughed out loud,
you wear your silence like a shroud
a shroud of pure maturity
no inner child could hope to free.
But there's a tickle potion dear,
I think they put it in your ear.
It takes you back to one or two,
when someone stole the child from you.
So don't look now ,but you may find,
the little girl inside your mind.
Young Boy in Heat
I remember when I was a kid
Maybe twelve or thirteen years old
Just on the edge of pubescence and
Becoming aware of my own sexuality
Drawn to girls for the first time and
Finding them compelling and different
Every sense jumping up when one
Entered a room I was hanging out in
Leaving me with an odd feeling in
My lower belly, confusion reigning
In my brain and emotions as to why
And it wasn’t long after my awareness
Of girls that I discovered women
I was a Libra with hormones rising
And almost anything became the fodder
For major teenage sexual fantasies
I was checking out my mother’s friends
Not to mention my friend’s mothers
I was obsessed and testosterone ran amok
The scent of perfume or powder
Scrambling my neurotransmitters
Smelling like notes from a smokey
Jazz record on an old phonograph
Prominent in a picture on the wall
I’ve chased that mystery since the
First hair appeared on my chest and
It’s rendered me a very happy man...
Philadelphia Phonographic School
Back about 1903
A parrot was the pet to be
But teaching Pretty Polly speech
Real words – not just a screech
Took some patience – took some time
For Pretty Polly just to mime
The teacher must stay out of sight
As phrase and words they would recite
Repeating them a thousand times
Before the light in Polly shines
So the Philadelphia Phonographic School
Of Language for Parrots was the tool
A phonograph was left that plays
Your choice of words for days and days
You had to pay for room and board
Six months – eight pounds – and your reward
Was Pretty Polly speaking words
Repeating everything she heard
But parrots live for sixty years
For sixty years your poor-poor ears
Will hear those same words every day
Until they carry you away
Or place you in a padded room
Citing Pretty Polly as your doom
Tiny phonograph with a small turntable,
Her child toy that lights up her eyes.
As it spins and turns with its now blurred label.,
It plays the songs in Mother Goose guise.
She becomes mesmerized, unable to leave.
Her sight is fixed on the round plate.
Has it become magic? What can she believe?
Quiet time's gift is parent's placate.
One day it happens! Rising up from the floor,
Songbird machine, made to enthrall,
Lisps forth a sad song as it floats out the door.
Hushing her thoughts, she looks at the wall
A two-tone case of blue and white
to house euphonious delight
It graces still the table top
on which it played its first “Doo-wop”
I’m thinking of my younger days
and of a million record plays
Nostalgia grooves with every spin
to satisfy the mood I’m in
The Beatles, Kinks and Rolling Stones
“No satisfaction”, Jagger moans
And Disco lives yet with the sound
of Vicki’s ‘Turn the beat around”
For holidays and Christmas cheer
“It came upon the midnight clear”
Still resonates in lovely tones
and “Silent night” still chaperones
Although it’s aged along with me
there is no better company
For rainy days to disappear
my phonograph of old is here