Tuesday poem: decant
January 29, 2019
decant
sax snaking
between notes,
tonguing air for directions,
poisonously honeyed
ears overflowing
quick thickening
and her voice,
both glacier and moraine
digging cool deep graves of swoon,
lowering us in,
willingly, longingly
noise-swaddled
now punctuated
by exhortations of snare,
the metal finesse
of the cymbal
jaggedly round —
its clanging infraction
PS Cottier
Writing about music is never easy; it always escapes being pinned down by meaning. Hope that you enjoy this attempt to write jazz. I have posted it once before, but I thought a reprise was in order.
Very happy to be back, by the way!
Tuesday Poem: Jazz, and the Rhysling anthology
April 29, 2018
Jazz
Sax snaking
between notes,
tonguing air for directions,
poisonously honeyed
ears overflowing
quick thickening
and her voice,
both glacier and moraine
digging cool deep
graves of swoon,
lowering us in,
willingly, longingly
noise-swaddled
now punctuated by
exhortations of snare,
the metal finesse
of the cymbal
so jaggedly round
sweet clanging infraction
their fingers, her larynx
lynx swift yet subtle,
pouncing syncopation
delivers gasp-slaps
on listeners’ lobes —
we clap pauseless poise
PS Cottier
It’s so very hard to write about music, but I continue to try!
In other news, my poem ‘Lycium Barbarum’ which first appeared in the journal Umbel & Panicle is now published in the Rhysling anthology, which contains poems nominated for the Rhysling Award, a yearly award for poems of a speculative nature. The awards are organised by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, based in the US. Speculative poetry includes science fiction, horror (mine is a humorous horror poem featuring werewolves), fantasy and sundry weirdnesses. Lovely to see it there.
(Image By User:Villanueva at hu.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons)
PS Cottier 