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Open Poetry #49
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The Music Room
| Open Poetry #49 |
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The Music Room |
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Cari Member Posts 411 Englnand |
Through the window Lamp lit silhouettes Of a chimney landscape Climbing up to Muswell Hill ~ I know where to find you Through the door of my childhood Where I fingered broken melodies and you smiled ~ The mantel clock strikes two How many hours now Alone in this November morning Waiting for the release of tears ~ I gather the stack of vinyl memories and out to a rainy street Closing the door on all my yesterdays + + Returning home to an empty house from overseas on the sudden death of my mother, she was still in her thirties. |
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| © Copyright 2016 Cari - All Rights Reserved | |||
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2islander2 Member Ascendant
since 2008-03-12
Posts 6825by the sea |
hi, memories can be a difficult subject, your poem has a great melancoly that is moving something, loved it yann |
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ethome Member Patricius
since 2000-05-14
Posts 11858New Brunswick Canada |
Cari Before I read the last line where you summarized the inspiration for this piece I was lost but intrigued. Sounds like she was also your piano teacher or facsimile. The smile she gave you expresses her love for you despite your level of success. Death is bad enough but an early death like that is crushing. Especially as she meant so much to you. Wonderful deep respect in this piece. Words can only partially express it. Whether you believe in the Bible and are religious or not I always like to read Revelation 21:4 or Psalms 37:29 from the Bible. Can be quite comforting. If you have a Bible give it a look up. Eric true love never looks after it's own interests |
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ice Member Elite
since 2003-05-17
Posts 3404Pennsylvania |
"I gather the stack of vinyl memories and out to a rainy street Closing the door on all my yesterdays" Most excelent metaphor Recorded memories-Vinyl (records) Enjoyed, in a sad way, but I like reality, and this is very real. "Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance." |
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Margherita Member Seraphic
since 2003-02-08
Posts 22236Eternity |
The melancholy is so strong here that it projects the reader into your painful experience and makes one stop to reflect upon the deep sadness that a premature transition of a Mother causes. Heartbreaking memory masterfully expressed. Margherita "Forget every touch or sound that did not teach you how to dance." |
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jwesley Member Rara Avis
since 2000-04-30
Posts 7563Spring, Texas |
Could be "music teacher", but deeper than that I saw, mommy . . . Loved the last stanza. j. |
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JerryPat2 Member Laureate
since 2011-02-06
Posts 16975South Louisiana |
Very, very touching, Cari. I wasn't able to quite "get handle on it," so I was grateful that you added the footnote. ~ If they give you ruled paper, write sideways. ~ |
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Cari Member Posts 411 Englnand |
Thanks everyone for reading and for your kind comments, to clear up some points that were made. My mother was not a teacher of music; she had studied the piano at the Royal College of Music in London from an early age and was earmarked for a soloist career but then she married in her teens, which produced me. That ended her dreams as a soloist because it involves so much foreign travel and she couldn’t carry a baby to around with her. She went on to have a career as a sort after accompanist and as an arranger; she also gave a number of public recitals herself. Much of this I learned from her contemporaries after she had died. I know that this sounds odd but to me in my early years it was simply what mother did, I can’t offer more than that. Sadly I never inherited a single ounce of her talent, so music, especially the classics, meant nothing to me the only talent I had was for sport which is about as far removed from Prokofiev etc as you can get and she was far to intelligent to force her love of music down my throat. I was around seventeen when a piece of music caught my interest. I went upstairs to the Music Room and asked her what the guitar piece was called. She put a record on and said “This you mean”? I nodded and we sat together and listened. Then she told me it was the Largo from Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto in D. not a guitar but played on the lute. I joined the army a year later so my education in music was sporadic and confined to my service leave’s. I only heard my mother play in public once at the city of Leeds Town Hall where she gave a recital of Chopin and Mendelssohn, bloody hell, that was something to remember. I don’t think that I have ever fully recovered from her sudden death. In my youth I found it difficult to be objective about her. I thought of her as first, second and third as my mother. I’m told this is not unusual but I bitterly regret I never spent much more time with her, as the man said ‘Youth is wasted on the young’ I’ll stop there, I’ve rambled on too much already. Cari. |
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