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11/12/2018 6:06:36 AM

Carolyn Fish
Posts: 12

~ A modern/personal take on Alexander Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard"
It is thought that the following lines are a call to action from Pope for other poets to carry on in re-telling the story of Eloisa and Abelard:

~"Such if there be, who loves so long, so well;
Let him our sad, our tender story tell;
The well-sung woes will soothe my pensive ghost;
He best can paint 'em, who shall feel 'em most."

~I've definitely taken quite a few licenses in making this "re-telling" my own, but hopefully its enough to soothe that "pensive ghost".
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Enjoy..

How cryptic would I have to be to get this off my chestOne score and yet it seems like yesterday it was the bestMost simple feeling that a girl could ever come to realizeA moment and a smile, gone and lost in big, sea-colored eyesIll-fated from the start, but gotta hand it to us kidsWho tried and failed and tried again, a love that popped the lidsOff every pressurized container of some crucial expectationHand in hand we walked a path of gorgeous ruinationThrashing in the beating lightFloating through the haze at night..Swimming through the sound of a Revolver…We heard each other speak, though not a single word was utteredDo you wonder what I wonder?On the times that split in twoOne path that leads me hereAnd one that leads me straight right back to youOh yes, sometimes I wonder if the fates have just been tryin’To make you my Billy Crystal and make me your sweet Meg RyanSo long from nowSo long for nowIts fun to stay and playWith these daydreams of a time that coulda-woulda’d in charming wayStraight into my own beating heart, dancing to a tuneOh sweet melody, sweet beat and rhymeHold tight and take me to the moonYes, whisper me a promise that I still could hold the keyTo a world that never will become, where you’re still holding meSome blameless vestal never that I wasThe shackles of insipid bliss could never give me causeTo laugh or love or live or cry or screamOr give any of the signals that my life is real and not a dreamEternal storm cloud of the spotted mindYour turmoil more belov’d by me for all that you’ve divinedOf the flavors that make life all worth the livingThe painful truths and hard earned proofs, the taking and the givingAsk me once, just once, if I’d go back and change it allWould I unburn every bridge we torched or rebuild every crumbled wall?I may as well be asked if I’d sell off my precious soulIn exchange for heady smoke and glitt’ring mirrors, all that would consoleThose gasping for reprieve from all the spice and fire and life and lightIllusion, sweet illusion that what’s wrong is wrong and right is right!So know this, that I often thinkIf even a thousand miles could sinkIf even a thousand years could make me blink away the mem’riesOf some distant love that made me gaze up to the stars in wonderOf some reckless love that charged the world with tearing us asunderAnd could I ask once more if you do wonder what I wonderOr if I’m the only fool to bare in rhyme this mortal blunderOf looking back if only for vain curiosityYes, I do know better than to ask the crime to gaze on meOnce more as in those sweet immortal times that we’ve forgotIf for nothing more than that my reverie is not for naught

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