Long before manhood
thrills of life, love and romance
there was rhythm in his heart,
so sweet these beats of music
moved in mind and body.
A life traced by drums and strums
inside, where he felt mother’s call
murmured timbre of Africa,
deep south memories and mountains,
the Delta, and up in Harlem
beats of moving city streets
voices chiming, skin colors,
body shapes and always, the eyes;
horn honking waves of yellow,
motion jammed across broad ways,
grand avenues, unending streets
and the town underground.
He felt it everyday in ways
most didn’t notice
ridin’ bumpy rails, noisy machines
even sounds and cadence
many tongues he barely understood
music of spirit and air,
thumping, bumping in the night
when city streets came alive
as if the cloak over the sun
was a time to breathe,
spirit within us began to move
to a different beat than sun
and summer heat made it all the more,
then there were women
smiles galore, beauty and occasional sincerity.
Almond toned skin, caramel cream, mocha
delights in colors mute or bright,
oh, such lips and eyes
there, up there on stage, enrapt stares
engaged a soul yearning freedom to touch;
dark skinned coating over purity
soul sprung from lips in longing song
and he reached for all of the rhythm
in his life, for all of the eyes
and smiles his thoughts had captured
for all of the love inhaled in the fall
of city night… reached and poured
self across echo filled rooms
to fill emptier thoughts and wanting wiles,
and backbeat for subtle smiles
winsome and knowing …
and the man flowed within the music.
A contest entry
- Winklings Celebrates its 100th Contest (A Series) - Contest K by Winklings.
6000 points, ended August 13, 12 entries
Honorable winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
-
This resounds with creativity's birthing...
filling each line with the senses that bring
magic into being. This flows with the essence
of prodigy and/or that ability which is innate.
Perfect flow to these words. Blue
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Roots! Ancestral voices calling in knowledge
not of experience but imaged in the blood. Colour is but a part of the equation. The cultural heritage in a new jungle of concrete rolls through the same beat. "Go with the flow" is hackneyed but you have said it with imagistic beauty and rhythm in the free verse cadences.
Stanzaic separation in the final parts of the poem is executed with intelligent adeptness.
I have been enjoying a well-written poem, poet.
-
I am instantly reminded of the scripture, "deep calls to deep." There is a sense of knowing in these lines, an identification with something under the surface--rhythm, music, home--soul.
The last part of this poem was so emotionally stirring--when he starts the reaching and pouring. Oh, gosh, I was there with him feeling what he must have felt, and somehow feeling like I knew what he must have known even though I had never had his experiences. Truly remarkable.
On a technical note, you used enjambment SO EFFECTIVELY between those final two stanzas, leaving this reader wanting and reaching right along with him during that extended wait. There was a real sense of expectation.
The emptiness truly saddened me, and yet, I marveled to realize that he had deep within him all he needed. He was designed with this rhythm. AND, he had experienced this rhythm. Yet, he was longing to find it. Thus, he was able to reach and pour at the same time. So beautifully expressed, and again, so moving.
Lots of other wonderful things here, sense of time and place, and others. But these I have mentioned were most wonderfully striking.
-
I think it sings...of you
Love, C
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