Jazz Runs the Rails
by Seah Greenhorn
(Poem with copyright)
A concrete core
feared
as a diminutive Dante's den
tainted and feral--
a sordid tunnel world.
Stepping timidly, knowingly
or mechanically descending
into its burping belly
various ages, stages
of diverse activities
among
converging scents:
perfumes,
alcohol,
body odor
train fumes;
yet I slayed
the beast
bested, settled to rest
the butterflies
As skippy melodies fly
to staccato highs and consoling lows
tapping? Dirty sneakers, pointed leather toes
lowering upturned or covered noses.
Posed... me with she
a harmonious extension
of my body;
held once cradled weightless
while trains sped for hours.
Warm—her notes, spiting cold keys
a frigid metal frame
caressed by loving fingers.
Her returning sounds?
So smooth
though porcelain shines
and tinted lips
vibrate woodwind reed.
I sway effortlessly,
even gracefully,
with the melancholy rhythm
stay the moment
in this domain of ecstasy;
pure bliss
mesmerized by long alluring tones
cascading
via my sax
into an otherwise unearthly silence
of the underground's entails.
My senses soar
brain waves implore: More
for mere sheer enjoyment of heaven's release
the trills of songbirds
reverberating back to me
lyrical and ethereal.
© Lucretia Mccloud, 19 minutes ago
I would like you to write your own poem after reading " Concert at the station" by the Russian poet Osip Mandelshtam. Thank you!
Concert at the station
Breathing is forbidden, heaven teems
with worms — and not a star to testify —
but God sees, there is music overhead,
the station shivers, the Aonides are singing,
once again, the violins — their air fused — merging
with explosions of the locomotives’ whistles.
An enormous park. A station’s ball of glass.
Once more the iron world twists, bound in a spell.
Toward a nebulous Elysium — to a feast of sound —
the festive carriage sweeps away,
the peacock shrieks, the grand-piano thunders —
I am late. Afraid. This is a dream.
I enter the glass forest of the station, penetrate
the violin’s arrangement in confusion, tears, in turbulence.
Shy and savage, the night chorus’s wild opening,
and the smell of roses in decaying seed-beds
where a dear, familiar shadow spent the nights
beneath the glass sky, in the wandering crowds.
And I imagine that the iron world is shivering
like a beggar in the music and the foam.
I lean against the passages of glass.
From violin bows the hot steam breathes and blinds the eyes.
Where are you going? Here, at the funeral
of a kind-hearted shadow, for us, for the last time, music rises.
1921
BY Osip Mandelshtam TRANSLATED BY Tony Brinkley & Raina Kostova
My poem excerpt and edited for contest from my novel: Is She On To Me... Chapter Eleven
Concert at the station
Breathing is forbidden, heaven teems
with worms — and not a star to testify —
but God sees, there is music overhead,
the station shivers, the Aonides are singing,
once again, the violins — their air fused — merging
with explosions of the locomotives’ whistles.
An enormous park. A station’s ball of glass.
Once more the iron world twists, bound in a spell.
Toward a nebulous Elysium — to a feast of sound —
the festive carriage sweeps away,
the peacock shrieks, the grand-piano thunders —
I am late. Afraid. This is a dream.
I enter the glass forest of the station, penetrate
the violin’s arrangement in confusion, tears, in turbulence.
Shy and savage, the night chorus’s wild opening,
and the smell of roses in decaying seed-beds
where a dear, familiar shadow spent the nights
beneath the glass sky, in the wandering crowds.
And I imagine that the iron world is shivering
like a beggar in the music and the foam.
I lean against the passages of glass.
From violin bows the hot steam breathes and blinds the eyes.
Where are you going? Here, at the funeral
of a kind-hearted shadow, for us, for the last time, music rises.
1921
BY Osip Mandelshtam TRANSLATED BY Tony Brinkley & Raina Kostova
My poem excerpt and edited for contest from my novel: Is She On To Me... Chapter Eleven
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