What lives you must lead!
You snatch notes out of air
with blurred horsehair and tortoiseshell,
furiously tempering
the silvered raindrops
and bedrock groanings,
alive with the terror
and thrill of the upheaval of it,
lifting and finding and reaching.
What happens after?
Do you laugh over Dickens,
hotel room windows
storm-streaked and frosty?
Sip beer from brown bottles
with animal labels?
Sigh at cards?
Or, unable to leave off,
a fire in your arteries
pulsating, do you once more
unsheath the scroll-leaved
Gibson, unearth the
great, eighteenth-century
Gabrielli from Florence?
Their tales mingle
with your aerial weavings;
and you can't stay away from the song.
A Lesson in Listening.
15 hours ago
4 comments:
There's a breath of Imagist voice in this poem, but you use structure nicely. There's something of Langston Hughes in here too.
I agree with Beth, in that I oddly and inexplicably see Hughes hiding between these lines.
Is this a good thing? I've not read a word of ol' Langston.
i don't know what happened but the last three lines made me tear up. in a good way that is.
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