song_of_thea | Entries tagged with idol

The very day Andrew penned that phrase,

Thoughts of anguish never crossed his mind.

His little melody, set in D,

Was meant to spark romantic yearnings

From the captive audience behind

The battlement of curtains and walls.

Still, the little melody in D

Begs for the listener to fondly

Reminisce hours after curtain

It needles and prods in practice rooms

And backstage- the siren, quite untrained

The pianist plucks each note for her,

Until hot tears of anguish escape

Whilst the siren, oblivious, sings.

“Think of me. Please! Do not forget me!”

Over and over until I shout

Out into the ether, “I curse you!

“I curse you, Andrew for this earworm!

That bumbles on relentless to all,

Save young sopranos who hope too much

And romanticize Stockholm plotlines

For the sake of a mediocre

Yet coveted chance in the spotlight.”

“Those poor inexperienced singers

Hustle and beg for a small part

In the musical, or opera- or

Stage drivel that you sloppily pen,

The directors and professors all

Pull at their wigs cursing, “Another!”

Wondering when this dreadful passion

For Great Andrew will finally cease

So that we can move on to Sondheim

Or Bareilles, Miranda or Mitchell

Or anyone with a better song

With compelling lyrics or perhaps

Non plagiarized melodies.

That hope to move on never arrives.

The goal is impossible to reach.

That dreadful little melody, set

In the brightest key of D major,

Once meant to spark feelings of romance.

It drudges up feelings of great dread,

I would rather fall down stone cold dead,

Than sit at the piano and tinkle

A rolling call of arpeggios

Beseeching the listener down that

Dark winding path of recollection.

For every note Dearest Andrew penned,

Hundreds of musicians are held bound

Captive, with nary more than mindless

Passing tones and tonics, dominants

Or pedal tones to console our minds

Escape from these phantoms which bind us

To our instruments and each other

Is for now, and evermore, futile.

Someday, my curse on you, Dear Andrew,

Will take hold. And either you shall write

Something worthy of our fingers, or

You shall be forgotten, releasing

Us from musical imprisonment.

A gentle mother,
She gives life to song and dance
From the gilded stage

*

Ictus and tactus
The baton stems from fingers
Weaving sounds of joy

**
Lyrics spill outward
Rivers of euphony flow
From this tattered page

***

First
We slice the cherry
Tomato
Then we chop up
The lettuce and spinach
Turning
Leaves
Into
Ribbons.

As you slice,
Imagine that you are shedding
And shredding
Hateful words and thoughts
And creating loveliness
From the strings
And mandalas of
Peace from the sliced tomato

Next, we thinly slice
Carrots and cucumbers.
As you slice your carrots,
Feel your sorrows
Fall away.
Like snow from a swinging branch.
Feel the anger inside
Evaporate with the juices of the
Cucumber
Notice how these feelings dissipate
Into the ether
Until only love and hope are left,
The foundation for your dish.

Toast the whole grain slices
(a rebirth by fire)
Whether bleached
Or whole,
We don’t desire soggy bread,
We won’t let darkness win
And ruin this meal

Take your ceremonial
Knife,
Plunge into the circular
Vessel of spread.
I use hummus.
Hummus itself, its own divine creation,
Mine is infused with garlic
To keep monsters both real
And imagined
Away

Stir the knife
In the pattern of the sun
Until the right weight is attained
Pull like the sword
From the stone
Because it was not meant
For King Arthur,
But for you.

Spread onto the pieces of
Perfectly toasted bread,
Spread to desired
Thickness
And when sufficiently covered
Set your tools down

Sprinkle leaves of
Basil and oregano
Like a shower of love raining down
Reaching the ground of hummus
Then layer with
Thinly sliced carrots,
Alternating with
Cucumbers
Creating
A seamless Mandelbrot
Of vegetables

Then take your ribboned leaves
Of spinach and lettuce
And create a light layer
Atop the vegetable Mandelbrot
Take care not to layer too thick,
The ribboned leaves are like
Cumulus or Altostratus clouds
Sailing above a lush landscape

Top with a mandala of
Cherry tomato slices
For they are the sweetest,
And your art should touch on
All of the taste buds
And senses within
Eager mouths

To create Magick
From the Earth,
Consider using only ingredients
Mother Earth can provide
Think of whom you make
This meal for,
And infuse it with the feelings of your heart

Close the sandwich,
Or leave it open on the plate
Serve with a side of fresh fruit
Then enjoy the masterpiece
You have created

The child with wide and anxious eyes

Feared to tell her mother the secrets that tormented her soul.

Last time the word, “bully” let fly

From quivering lips and sobs and anguished groans,

Mother did in vain try

To teach her daughter a mantra by rote

That upon her enemies, the child could recite

And while sticks and stones could destroy,

Threats, names and faces would be defied.

The poor girl wanted to believe this simple rhyme,

A mantra to banish those who wished ill on her sadly tormented soul.

How delightful to have a shield to render phrases like weapons

Thrown at her bounced off, impaired.

For no one dared to throw stones.

Not on this playground, at least.

But the mantra failed

Repeatedly

And with the beginning of, “Sticks and stones will break-“

They interjected,

“You are beneath sticks and stones,

You ugly and useless thing!

I might accidentally touch you, and die!”

They said in happy retort.

Incantation unfinished, the child would dissolve to nothing

And so the girl cried alone.

The child with narrowing eyes

Anxiously fret and fussed.

She began to hate school,

And the friends she claimed to trust,

Her mother- too busy to notice,

Her father- a long gone deadbeat,

Well-meaning aunts and uncles,

Grandparents and teachers, all echoed a similar mantra.

Then, they would disappear

One

When the child insisted that the mantra always failed,

And the girl began to die inside.

When sixteen years came

The teen was filled with quiet anger

Keeping her notes to paper,

The taunts and bullies had grown

Fleshed into poetic monsters set on

Sharing in happy misanthropy

Poe and Lovecraft told similar tales

But in a compelling manner that this girl did not possess

Yet enough readers were kept in rapt attention

Until the poetry stopped

At age 21

“Grow up!” a beloved told her,

“No one cares about your monsters, or your dreams!”

And once again, the anxious and wide eyed young adult

Now alone, closed her tome, and cried again

The world went dark

For many years

No mantras

No shields

No invocations were called to rouse the spirit of defense

Not until another anxious

Young girl with wide eyes pleaded with tears and wails

That the bullying stop.

A very concerned mother roared

Into the corners of the universe,

“It’s the twenty-first century! Has nothing changed?”

Followed by

A small

Voice,

Her OWN voice

From her childhood,

“What do I do now?”

Determined not to fail

Like her teachers

And mother and father

And grandparents, aunts and uncles,

The very concerned mother listened to the

Still small voice from her

Tormented childhood

Before giving an answer to her anguished daughter

“You can’t fight this alone,”

The mother finally said,

“And it is not your responsibility to.

Nothing you say or do will stop them,”

She said.

“Nothing will change with a rhyme

Or phrase of words, but

You can fight back,

Call upon your friends and teachers,

Call upon your mother and father,

And if someone throws a stone,

Here is how you block it.”

And after that child went to sleep,

The mother roared again into the ether

And the echo of others who were

Once helpless

Like that long ago child

Roared back in solidarity,

Unleashing those poetic monsters once more on this

Electronic paper

From our indistinguishable

And tiny pebble of a rock

Which orbits the graceful sky called Saturn

We live our lives,

Indescript to human eyes

Save for the Goddess Cassini.

She seemed named as such

According to our oracle, Yok

Whose adeptness with symbols

Could on her metal hull decipher

Eons ago when our kind, she greeted

We knew Cassini served another

For her core was hot,

And the priestesses could hear the

Electro magnetic waves in

Spendid arias the Goddess would sing,

Or so I’m told

Yet, neither through divination

Nor through sound

Could the priestesses hear calls back

Toward our satellite Lady

So on the morning centuries before,

Where Her plutonium ring dimmed

And we could sense heartbreak,

Cassini sent one last dedicated aria

Before diving into the seas of Saturn below

How cruel of Her lover

Not to return her gestures!

Centuries have come and gone,

And the blue star to the left of

Our golden sun, Sol

Not a word, no electromagnetic wave

Of affection for our fallen Goddess

Returns to us

We, from our indistinguishable

And tiny pebble of a rock

Mourn the loss of our once gracious

Metallic Goddess Cassini,

Since her lover, Terra, never shall

Papa has told us
We should gather all
Able-bodied boys and men.
Tell them, “God has called!”

“Our stores are weak,
It’s time to strengthen
Reserves and banks
Lest our Holy Empire fade.

“Our neighbors over yon
They have other Gods
So we shall save them all
From their ethereal squalor.”

We toil to gather,
We threaten to take the moon
We have already taken their wealth
And their ability to read books

But I, a lowly servant of
The Heavenly Father above
Question Papa’s motives.
I do not wish to follow this directive.

Surely,
The Lord would be merciful
His people and neighbors over yon
And would not require a massive army
For spoils to be won?

I think Papa has turned strange
Since mounting this Crusade
Something has corrupted
But who am I, but God’s chosen
And most studious servant?

I seal my thoughts away
On this vellum hidden
Beneath poetic Psalms to our Father
And gracious Mother Mary

Hark! The bells! I must go and pray
For Papa’s able-bodied army.
They do not wish to fight.
Some are only eight winters old,
Our priests have promised hellfire
To those who desert their posts.

I consider my own thoughts,
More and more, this Crusade seems wrong.
Our Heavenly Father would not want,
So I deviate from the word of Papa.

After Vespers,
My peers discuss protesting
They, too, feel Papa errs
I am happy to be correct

Yet when the morning bells toll,
Men in red arrive and take us all
We are dragged into the churchyard
With heresy, six of us are charged.

As they light the bundle of sticks
To which we are affixed, all six
Of us begin to sing prayers to the true God
And not the corrupt Papa

We stand our ground,
“Et Lux Eterna,” we sing as
The men in red answer, “Dies irae, dies illa”
The fire consumes us with our final chorus of “Ave,”
Has our God forsaken us now?

Death imminent, my soul begins to rise
From my desecrated body.
I see the villagers run for their lives,
For they do not wish to fight.

I pray for their safety
In this hour where God has left us to die
Perhaps God has sided with Papa after all
And we are blessed with Hellfire for admonishing
The Crusades.

To my Mother,
Father,
And all my mothers and fathers before them:
Whether by blood,
Or by love,
If we have met in the flesh
Or only through the realm of dreams
You have created
The self that lives
Breathes
And lives on this day

Perhaps I should give a nod of gratitude,
Or perhaps a remark in disdain
For I was forced from Mother’s sacred womb
Into this cold and angry place

Perhaps today, I sing a note in thanks
Or is it a cry of despair
As the city around me burns
While adults I have never met tell me that my
Lack of simple garden tools brought my world into disrepair?

I want to say, “Thank you,”
But instead I find myself in sorrow
As my transgender sister
Dies in the cold
When the church closes the door to shelter
Or my brothers are beaten down for the color of their skin
By racist men who happen to wear blue

I begin to speak in tones of gratefulness for my life
And then I pause
For my life is nothing
When others have suffered great loss
I am not a fighter,
I have always offered healing and respite
But my heart grows heavier
Each and every night

So I ask with great urgency
To my Mother, Father
And ALL who came before them
Why did you teach others so poorly?
Why does society stand on the side of hate?
Why is it so important that on a Thursday of November
That we stop and give thanks to ourselves
While marginalizing everything else?

Why do we find it so important to forget?
Whether by blood,
Or by love,
We are all connected?

Why do we forget, Mother?
Why do we not care, Father?
Why do you let us forget?
Why can’t we break the cycle
So our children will not suffer us?

I want to say, “Thank you.”
But I am muted with rage
For I will forget
I will forget you, and them
And I will make the same mistake
With my own children

No, thank you.