The podcast of this poem is here
This dazzling gown you created
no longer fits my tired frame
My feet are worn – blisters turned to callouses
Make-up smudges on your shoulder prove my face now bare
The orchestra strains the same refrain, over and over
This waltz is no longer in time, the notes abide al niente
My kiss has moved from your lips to your cheek, still true, but
I ask again with surety
take your right hand from my waist take your left hand away from mine
and please take two steps back.
Definition al niente – (music) The music notation that the dynamics fade to nothing.
(btw – this is not a reflection of my state of mind, haha, just an oldie which I finally decided to publish and put to music) oh! and I can’t get the text to stay in couplets hence the fullstops. :S
As moments in time go you have captured the sadness of parting felt by one coupled with a desire for personal space felt by the other, and I think the couplet arrangement suits this piece perfectly. I didn’t find the fullstops distracting in any way. I think maybe they add something valuable to the pace but not sure how to express it except to say that sometimes the limitations of writing in this kind of space can impose meaningful meanings that would otherwise have been displaced by intentions. This is beautiful Kiersty. I hope there will be a sequel to this piece – perhaps some future moment in which they return to an embrace. 🙂
This is beautiful and beautifully sad … your podcast (as ever) works wonderfully well with the music … especially with the melancholy beat and half-whispered words of this poem.
This and the last poem prove yr diversity. Proof of how you cross borders. Don’t stop.
That moment of separation, when one backs away from the two is written and spoken beautifully by you. I also like the music you’ve chosen because of their is a remote tenderness to the sound of the strings, a rising and falling you’ve timed with certain lines and emotions.
Thank you Brad – nice to have you commenting again 🙂
Tracey – thank you so much… I had a little chocolate on a cappuccine today. Does that count? Ohhh I hope not. 🙂
Cal – I’ll keep going on and on and on and …
Val – so pleased you liked it. I’m hoping to put a lot more of the old ones to music by easter. My way of housekeeping 🙂
very beautiful, graceful, poignantly unforgettable and moving.
just wonderful
Sad, Kiersty… I think she’s tired – of him…
The end of this dropped like brick on a toe; the surety of the request, and somehow I felt a sadness (I’m just not sure for which )…your words always give me a place to come back to.