Your violin in its beat black case
takes your shape as I did dream
you, played into silence. I race
for time lost to words without grace,
and hollow. How worn you seem,
like your violin in its beat black case
lashed with leather belts. I could not face
your face tender in hers but did not scheme
against you, only played into silence. I race
the day into night now, try again to trace
to one place my fall from your esteem.
In its corner, your violin in its beat black case
absorbs your every note of my disgrace
you reduced to variations. This one theme
too well you played, and into silence I still race,
forever more that one, fingered and replaced.
What's composed you can't erase, and too extreme's
the screeching of your violin in its beat black case.
From you, even played into silence, I race.
© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas
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No one is going to mistake this poem as embodying the "sounds of Christmas", unless she suffered a broken heart this season or was listening to Christmas carols played achingly on the violin. The poem is, however, a villanelle and I'm offering it up for TweetSpeakPoetry's call for Random Acts of Poetry, which earlier this month issued a call for work in the form.
Today is the deadline for poems (and for participants in the related PhotoPlay); so, if you've written a villanelle (the challenge is described here), drop a link to your poem on the T.S. Poetry Press FaceBook wall as soon as you can. Your poem, if selected, could end up featured at TweetSpeak or in Every Day Poems.
You'll find my villanelle "Few Precious Words" here.
Update: A recording of "Played Into Silence" is available at SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/mdoallas/audio-recording-of-played-into
Update: A recording of "Played Into Silence" is available at SoundCloud:
http://soundcloud.com/mdoallas/audio-recording-of-played-into
9 comments:
Beautiful Poem.
No broken heart here -- just lots of love for you and this poem.
Wow, Maureen. I felt this part was the most powerful:
"your every note of my disgrace
you reduced to variations. This one theme
too well you played, "
The ache of this is palpable during Christmas or anytime.
Beautifully done!
the part about being reduced to variations. Oh, how it echoes in the villanelle form itself. Really good.
let not the page be silent
Strength and discord...pain that produces a beautiful symphony of triumph over it with words plucked in perfect ripeness.
This breaks my heart.
There's something about that beat black case--painful, dark, and shut-up music.
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