Poetry

Handel’s Water Music at My Wedding

Handel’s Water Music at My Wedding

Full of joy and laughter and loveMy parents gave me few choresNo ultimatumsI never was groundedOr punishedI learned to criticize myself for every flawAnd correct others creating boundariesWhere I had none. My mother was a musicianA concert harpist who played in four symphoniesOf south LouisianaAnd weddings on most weekendsShe played nearly 10,000 weddings in 40…

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Movement

Movement

The first thing I learned about the violinWas to move my bow with the other bowsNot to position my hands, or count the tempoBut that the dance of the bow on the stringsAnd the look of the group mattered moreThan the sounds we produced.Making a note, and moving my bowI sounded like a dying catScratching…

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Let us not cling

Let us not cling

"The happiness of a tree that clings to its roots” wrote Nietzsche in 1873A hundred years before I was bornWhen the roots I would cling to were being formed. Let us not cling to the past that our foremothers wrought with iron and wood as they cut down the trees to build cabins that became a neighborhood. Let us not cling, but…

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Poets

Poets

Poets are thinkersMaking an argument For the story they see,Or the world as it should be. Angry, an optimistDisappointed, believerDescribing her hopes, scenesAnd all of her dreams.

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tempo

tempo

And sotempois onceagainmy FLAW Because I can't go slow and wait. And wait. Waiting for you to pace along And catch up.   It bores me.  

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Scab

Scab

Scratched at a scarTo find it a scabBleeding againLost in a name

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Gene is dead

Gene is dead

An old couple and their dog were found dead today at their house just up the mountain from me. Whether suicide or CO2, they died together.  My mother called me concerned about the dog, poor dog, she said. I said lucky dog,  you wouldn’t want to wake up with both your owners dead. She said…

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A brush with love

Instant love is attraction like a magnet Drawing you to your beloved in a momentWith the flicker of a smileAnd the scent of the agesPulling you in at first meeting. But, real love seeps into your lifeSlowlyDripping just a drop at a time.Never drinking from a fire hose.Always leaving you thirsty for more.

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The Scent of Honor

The Scent of Honor

You like to be cleanBut you get dirty without apologyOr resentmentYou smell when you’ve been workingOf sweat and grease and trashAnd sticky icky gooAnd juice combined with brothNot in a recipe but on your skin aloneA smell that’s nowhere elseBut on youAnd on me when you touch meThe way I smell as you walk to…

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CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.

CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.

Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched.

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