Your Voice
Your Voice
(for Big Tent Poetry)
The ordinary
brown label
incongruent
with the astonishing contents
held within the tape
held within the plastic case
my personal treasure
and torture
your voice
true through
all these years
(held within this tape
held within this plastic mausoleum)
you spring so lively
from the speakers
if I close
my eyes tight
and override the pain
(held within my chest
held within my own memory)
which continues to hum
with your death
it’s almost, almost
like I could reach out
and you’d be here
in all your splendid texture.
The ordinary
brown label
incongruent
with the astonishing contents
held within that time
held within our time together
my personal treasure
and torture
our love
true through
all these years
(held within my heart
held within my still beating heart).
“it’s almost, almost
like I could reach out
and you’d be here
in all your splendid texture.”
I loved this stanza!
half-way through
Glad you liked it
This is so sad, but nicely done.
http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com
Thanks Tilly, it’s the most I can hope for in most of my poetry!
Yes, so sad, but very lovely to read…
I heard a recording of my grandfather’s singing, a man who had died before I was born. Just to hear it was as if I knew him and had lost someone very dear to me…
I an imagine, Cynthia…I knew my Grampa and listening to the recordings had to happen years after he died. Even after all that time it was like a crack to the heart – but necessary.
Very nicely portrayed pangs! I like your comparison of the plastic tape cartridge to a mausoleum. Perfectly fitting to the relationship to the voice. I like the way you leave the story leading up to listening to the tape open. Any number of things could have happened, and because we are not old which to feel, we readers feel several of them, adding to the emotional impact. Very nicely done indeed!
This is a beautifully constructed poem – a elegy, of a kind – which touches the heart. It’s like phoning someone who’s husband has died and his answerphone message is left for all time, to comfort the widow: tears often ensue.
This is a beautiful, beautiful poem, and in its sadness you have also preserved a memory very special. You are lucky to still be able to listen to the voice……
Bittersweet – lovely read.
so beautiful and so true. i think sound touches the very soul- the sound of voice or any thing else.
Thanks everyone for commenting on my poem – it is one which is very dear to my heart so glad that it resonated with others as well. So often when you take a personal experience as a starting point for a poem the worry is it will be too insular to really communicate anything, so nice to know this isn’t the case.
miss your talent in my place..
how are you?
http://jingleyanqiu.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/happy-birthday-2-lisa-plus-happy-belated/
help giving happy belated birthday wishes to 5 to 10 poets,
take the butterfly award,
enjoy!
Brilliant poem. I’ve a cassette which has been at the back of a drawer for 25 years which I’ve never been brave enough to listen to.
I have only been able to listen to the tape twice in over 18 years…I never know if it’s because my Grampa sounds so present that it’s overwhelming, or the crashing knowledge that when I turn off the tape he’s gone again. Either way I know I need to get one of those USB tape converters, because part of me needs the tape even if it’s rarely heard.
Also, thanks for taking the time to reply