Strains of notes shuttle me back
to my grandfather’s makeshift -fort
crammed with songbooks, bows, and pipes.
Here, we would empty our shoulders
from a rough sail;
he scattering fiddle tunes on painted halls--
his eyes half-closed ,melting the noise
of an anxious world, of teary wrongs.
‘Bathe in night's luster ’ he mused,
smitten by some Gerhwin's refrains...
and my rubber spine would bend with
violin strings weeping till we drowned
in trusses of orchestral magic...
Sometime in fall, dirge of nightfall exhumed
his lust for old charm...
and my eyes fall on the moat of vagueness ,
lost in the maize of this space
utterly cold.damp. unsung,
plucking his strings so hastily uninvited.
Trains, once a proud means of travel.
Now the locomotive has been replaced.
We travel by cars, buses, jets and
planes fill seats as onward travelers fly.
Leaving relics of history tucked in the pages
of songbooks and poetry.
Written for Railroads, A Historical Glance Back poetry contest.
Sponsored by BJ Legros Kelley
Placement: 4th
It was the point of a meaningless moon,
That being dealt life, its absolute gloom,
Vague stars shone hope to reposed past of Earth,
Dusk hath casts a crazed eve, pure hueless girth,
Joint lives of suave views have spread neath vain space,
Twain hearts of faint aims bent at an odd place,
Hath time rose, it was at a library,
Heartbeats are intact, waft of rare moon, free,
Scene set single swift shift that sways said lives,
When immortal kiss filled, hatched modern drives,
Flash of bliss, sum less than a week, pithy,
Souls warp sovereign time a dichotomy,
Ageless Sun o'er timeless Earth, midst readers,
Pave periods, us, episode writers,
Two; songbooks split, both sung; books wrote, both said,
A book close, ashes to ashes, rites read,
Ode paid, poet refrains, anew begun,
...Chapter One.
No regrets, separate lives lived since my first kiss experience, though death came at mid-life, both of us had a fulfilled life, and for that, I am content.
My pen is drawn to words not mine
In search of thoughts that say
How much your love has meant to me
In oh, so many ways.
To write a song for you alone
Is what I try to do.
But words unsaid are hard to find
To say how I love you.
Each now and then, I seem to find
A special word or two,
But closer looks in old songbooks
Find words meant just for you.
The words that say what your love means
Are there for all to see.
Oh (Girl), I wish with all my heart
Those words had come from me.
Have all the songs been written?
Have all the words been said?
Must I depend on someone else?
Or can I look ahead?
To words unsung to say the things
My words cannot fulfill?
If the song has not been written
Then Girl, I know I will.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.