It can be hard to capture emptiness with words, but often that is the primary emotion that I bring to my poems. This poem is a prayer that I wrote originally as the final part of a sequence of poems inspired by John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”. The final track of that album is soContinue reading “Psalm (from “Les Feuilles Mortes”)”
Tag Archives: music
Music for children’s choir
Headphone-bound, children sing as I round the corner. The nonchalance of late morning traffic greets a flutter of flight – black and white feathers – painting the street in uncontrolled strokes: a rise, a swoop, a leap, a fall. Ballet-graced, yet deadly in its implications: too wild, too close to the turmoil of wheels.Continue reading “Music for children’s choir”
Lent: New Song 4
New, this song that you must sing, yet carved in ancient harmonies, set to ancient notes and weighed in ancient modes on ancient scales, from everlasting days. Tune your strings to ancient staves and sing the truths of yesterday; rehearse the promises of old in present songs of future hope, in freshest melody. The oldContinue reading “Lent: New Song 4”
Sprawl: For Les Murray (and Bach)
February is a short month, and so sadly I am having to speed up our journey through Les Murray’s poetry. My final poem for the month is an original work written in response to this interview with Murray from Image (Winter 2009-10) as well as Murray’s own description, in a personal letter, of his visit toContinue reading “Sprawl: For Les Murray (and Bach)”
For there we hung our harps
On the poplars, drooping, drooping, weeping in the river’s run, there we hung our harps, no singing; singing is now silent, dead. The songs are gone, our tongues are weeping; singing is now silent, dead. Where’s the Zion of our singing, weeping in the river’s run? Zion is a memory, fading, weeping in the river’sContinue reading “For there we hung our harps”
The Consolations of Writing 