An Old Muse

Six string guitars play as well in black hands as white,
music crowding out burdened bars to fill streets with standing,
they come to hear stories, pains, the picking of young and old.
In time as day turns to night the music gains its height,
with revelers pouring out drinks, hearts, souls, on each landing,
but over broken glass and in stripping heat, they’ll still dance bold.

She walks among the beautiful party people, stalking their sounds,
there in the beginning, standing by while tuning came, went,
since first times when men cried aloud for company and now still.
Children curse, women sing, and men dance for rounds,
as she walks off, in wake a tune of her devised symphonic bent,
and even though nobody knows she is there, it is her granting this thrill.

—-

A New Muse

My mirror that sings back those saccharine sharp hymns,
I remember her pressed, entwined, new music on old limbs.
My muscles creeking in tense new ways as I reel.
Now I reach out wishing for forgiveness, for sweetness to feel.
But those pale golden strands hang harp-like beyond reach,
trapped in a cage of petty pain and rage, my sanity’s leech.

I hold regrets as twice hypocrisy now in each hand,
that tender music beyond me now, I scour this barren land.
And I remember back to the beauty of your songs,
not those played on keys, but on a heart without wrongs,
only for tears to fall on my keys, not of lyric but plain word,
running silent, forgetting the music and by everyone unheard.