Not
a word
is sincere,
an agenda
hidden in shadows.
Collateralized smiles
full of symbiotic words,
I want someone to just want me.
Thinking back on the whole of today,
every person who talked to me had strings.
He was carved as a man of distinction~
white brows arched like winter feathers,
a handlebar moustache curled with practiced pride,
vest gleaming with gold-coin buttons
that caught lamplight the way old stories do.
In one hand he holds a dollar-marked bag,
in the other he lets coins dangle,
as if weighing the worth of a life
he never fully lived.
But the truth sits in the strings.
They rise from his wrists and shoulders,
thin as whispers, taut as old debts.
Someone above him, unseen, unnamed~
decides when he walks,
when he pauses,
when he performs his polished little bow.
Some say the puppeteer is a banker long gone,
still tugging at fortunes from the shadows.
Others claim it’s time itself,
pulling every creature forward
whether they wish to move or not.
But the marionette knows better.
He feels each tug, each small command,
the way an old man might feel weather
settling into his bones.
Sometimes the strings go slack for a moment~
just long enough for him to wonder
what he’d do with those coins
if the choice were finally his
and not something pulled from above.
Lost in time’s journaled ball of string
Broken dreams
Knotted into now’s
Forgotten when’s
Silence hides
Within the corner
Of a loneliness
A cold tear mocks
The kindness
Of a faded memory
Old lover’s
Rekindle the flame
Of smoldering kisses
Laughter
Teases the edges
Of an endless love
Adding to time’s journaled ball of string
Make the strings hot
When Eddie Van Halen is scalin’
Make the strings hot
When Randy Rhoads fingers explode
Make the strings hot
When Angus Young’s Gibson SG strums
Make the strings hot
With Pete Townsend’s windmill trend
Make the strings hot
When Jimmi Hendrix uses his mouth picks
Make the strings hot
When Jimi Page uses a bow on stage
Make the strings hot
When Jeff Beck serenades the neck
Make the strings hot
When David Gilmore comfortably plays chords
Make the strings hot
When Chuck Berry walks aviary
Make the strings hot
When Bo Diddly plays it fiddly
Make the strings hot
When you hear Frampton and Clapton
Make the strings hot
When you hear Brian May play
Make the strings hot
In a rockin' classical theme of Yngwie Malmsteen
Make the strings hot
Where Howlin' Wolf
Said Robert Johnson sold his soul
Make the strings hot
When Eugene Martone and Steve Vai collide*
(And Johnny beat the tempter sly)*
(Of all the Israelite kings)
One, a cunning player of strings*
Like a puppet in a sense, I loosely hang here
Getting images of feelings in color. Bold, timely, revere.
A string from the thought to a brush in hand.
I trace and I move in unison per my command.
Swaying and twisting my wrists with love
Looking for a nod I’ve impressed master above.
Thankful for the gift given to me
To transmute love by design. Tuned harmony.
I don’t always understand the direction
but there’s a knowing in my strings. there’s a connection!
It’s not a game. I’m not playing. Nor am I a toy.
It’s an honor, a badge, a duty.
I’m a real boy.
-Jalaila Hardy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You find them first in the attic dust,
spells written on the backs of receipts~
bleached ink, promises curled at the frayed edges.
They taste of cinnamon and static,
whispering in a tongue your brain
almost remembers.
Strings, too. Not the kind that bind,
but the ones that fray~
a sweater unraveled by time,
a puppet cut loose,
still jerking its limbs in the dark.
And the forgotten things?
They crowd the corners like shy ghosts,
holding their breath.
A locket with no face inside,
a key that fits nothing you own,
the slow dripping of a faucet
that stopped being fixed
long before you were born.
You could cast them all,
these leftover incantations,
but magic is heavier
when it has nowhere to go.
So you let them settle~
spells without syllables,
strings without anchors,
lost things learning
how to stay.
Thank you for this one,
Mr. Barber.
John F. Kennedy
loved it too.
I learned what adagio
means, today.
The movie
‘Platoon’
immortalized
the song
for me.
For what it’s worth,
I’m teaching my son
real history.
Willem Dafoe
dropped to his knees
for the fortissimo.
Helicopters,
rain, and bullets
are apathetic
to men and music.
Ben, “look life
dead in the face
and know what you want.”
I don’t know,
what is more
agonizing:
to see great actors
portraying a war
I will never see,
or the unbearable
slowness
and bleeding
of ‘Adagio
for Strings.’
Discovery
an event
with implications
for the future
or a new look
at the past~
another story:
there are no such
strings attached to
Discovery~
hawk
soars
above
kite
ttes agi
hou. nst
sill. blue
no
strings
attached
I just had a thought
and I'm thinking of her
pulling the strings
tugging at my heart
running rings
'round my emotions
now I'm wondering
where it will end
and if once broken
will it ever mend
as she cracked the code
broke the lock
giving rise
to a state of shock
I'll never be the same
but I'm to blame
as I opened the door
then hoping to win
opened my arms
and let her in
The Invisible Strings of Black Light
I sing my mute blizzard on the stiffened string of full void,
the shrill echo of silence gently undoes time's curtain for me,
like a luminescent howl from a transparent sarcophagus,
that aspirates my breath through the pores of an effervescent abyss,
cacophonic symphony of angels with wings of calcified plague,
conducted by white crows singing in psalms of evaporated matter,
adorned with the phosphorescent keyboards of the abyss-color,
that blinds with its radiant blackness any lucid non-seeing,
abstract paintings of crystallized tears in dried blood,
a hypnotic rodeo of petrified butterflies in arrested flight,
metaphysical courtesans of a sterilized and eternal amor,
king without crown in the kingdom without throne and without stern,
where love is an amnesia that remembers everything in forgetting,
and presence is no longer needed to always be living disappearance,
my sinusoidal trajectory through a crystal of solid fog,
that wove our eternity into an exploded second,
to the nectarous curses floating through your granite thoughts,
the mosaic of my solar nights with fate's luminous catastrophes!
“Strings”
We meet in the halfway light,
where love pretends to be casual.
You text first,
you hold me close,
you look at me like I’m still yours
and for a moment,
I almost believe it.
Then you ask,
“No strings attached, right?”
like the words don’t cut through me,
like you didn’t just wrap your arms around my heart
and then deny they were ever there.
I laugh it off,
because I’d rather keep this half-version of you
than risk losing you completely.
You show me you care
in the way you remember my favorite song,
in the way your hand lingers a second too long
but you never say it.
And I never ask.
You seem fine.
Maybe you are.
Maybe I’m the only one
still reading love between the pauses.
So I stay quiet,
pretending the ache is worth it,
tied up in invisible threads
you keep pretending not to see.
Far as the eyes can see
Nearer than what is far-aeay
The love that has cum+for you
Iß the love for us
What to say
To make you come again
To make you
Come back to anyware you are
Cause looniness is such a
Sad affair
Come back to me again, and ah again
I wanna be
Anywhere you are
See I don't love you
And I don't need you
I want you
I am just
To proud to begin
To far down is the way you go
When you don't care anymore
Find someone who cares
The one
Who say there be there
Ain't no world for me
Without you
Without you
What's ah man
To do
Tell me baby
Tell me baby
Learning to love you
Is learning you
What about me
What's is it gonna be
Tell me you care
Learning to need you
Cause I love you and need you
Tell me you care
Say you'll always
Be there
Yeah. Yeah, yeah!
Tell me you really love
Me baby
Tell me you
You really want me baby
Baby. Baby
Ooh baby
I love you
I really do
Far as the eyes can see
Nearer than what is far-aeay
The love that has cum+for you
Iß the love for us
What to say
To make you come again
To make you
Come back to anyware you are
Cause looniness is such a
Sad affair
Come back to me again, and ah again
I wanna be
Anywhere you are
See I don't love you
And I don't need you
I want you
I am just
To proud to begin
To far down is the way you go
When you don't care anymore
Find someone who cares
The one
Who say there be there
Ain't no world for me
Without you
Without you
What's ah man
To do
Tell me baby
Tell me baby
Learning to love you
Is learning you
What about me
What's is it gonna be
Tell me you care
Learning to need you
Cause I love you and need you
Tell me you care
Say you'll always
Be there
Yeah. Yeah, yeah!
Tell me you really love
Me baby
Tell me you
You really want me baby
Baby. Baby
Ooh baby
I love you
I really do
Alone Lyric By Eileen Manassian
Alone, alone..
.always alone
The pain I feel
cannot be known
This heart of flesh has turned to stone
Alone, alone...
I am alone
Chorus
Alone, alone...always alone
My dreams on wistful wings have flown
Depression has usurped my throne
Alone, alone...I am alone
Instrumental
Alone, alone..
.always alone
The wind gives voice
to primal groan
This world
no empathy has shown
I'll live, I'll die,
and rest...alone
Chorus
Alone, alone...always alone
My dreams on wistful wings have flown
Depression has usurped my throne
Alone, alone...I am alone
(Alone)
(Alone)
(I am alone)
Sub Categories
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.