Bells And Bars
In the grey cellblocks
of the circus maximus
there's a mad girl listening
to a bird singing,
to a bird singing,
a soft wind-ringing of lily bells.
The notes are trickled
from a carillon throat
in a dark made of rock;
the crowd flickers its shadows
the crowd flickers its shadows
at the last hour of day.
the notes of the thrush
candle the dusk
like glow-worms signaling stars.
like glow-worms signaling stars.
Nothing moves
but the sinking bright pillars
of burnt-out sun, prison-harsh, and the
wing-blurr of a thrush to show us
what now is a ruin
what now is a ruin
once was a song.
~August 2016
posted for real toads
Bird Singing In The Moonlight, 1939, © Morris Graves, Fair Use via wikiart.org
Oh, Joy, how beautiful! The wind-ringing of lily bells, the candled dusk and, especially, your closing lines: "what now is a ruin, once was a song". Wowzers!
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me a bit of plato's cave, only its demise. The sound is just beautiful as are the sounds evoked and the bars of burnt out sun are very vivid and real as it that sad caughtness, a kind of reified disillusion. Thanks k
ReplyDeleteThose first five lines are as fine as anything I've read in a long time, Joy, and the ending brought tears to my eyes. To speak truth so amazingly, so fearlessly, and so quietly is a gift that almost nobody has. You have it in abundance.
ReplyDeleteSo powerful, vivid -- it made me think of a caged bird, and I could hear the bells in the wind. The sadness stretches through your poem like a melancholy, drawn out phrase that is sung -- a dirge. I hear it underneath the bells...chilling. Real. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDelete"the notes of the thrush
ReplyDeletecandle the dusk"
How gorgeous is that? This a haunting piece, an ending things. I really love this.
Beautiful language (trilling like birdsong!); magnificent ending.
ReplyDeleteWonderful play on feelings. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis feels like light and song embodies...love the wording you use here:
ReplyDelete"the notes of the thrush
candle the dusk"
Really unique.
Thank you, Hedge. :)
So many things that were once a song...beautiful!
ReplyDeleteAnd still it sings, as pure and fresh as ever. This is both ontology and telos, where it begins and ends, a fractured kaleidoscope of mind and word of a circus with shaking shadow stands and the ever stilled highwire. No matter how bleak it sings.
ReplyDeleteYou know how to use words in strange new ways, which makes one rethink both meaning and connotation.
ReplyDeleteThis one image is a case in point, but really, the whole is just resonant.
Outside the barred columns
the notes of the thrush
candle the dusk