NOTHING RHYMED TODAY

Nothing Rhymed Today

Nothing rhymed today

There was no meter or melody

No singing lyric or verse of song

Just jangled nerves and unspoken fears

Left dangling on my key chain.

Cars passed me

In the pouring rain

And never acknowledged the girl

With the gas can and the thumb

And the mascara running down my face.

I could have shown some leg

I suppose

But my clothes were plastered to me

Like I had been poured into them

And everything I had was exposed already.

If it had been yesterday

I would have laughed at my mishap

Run down the highway

Danced in the rain and stopped traffic

With the glow on my shining face.

Everything rhymed yesterday

Every word that issued from my mouth

Was finely tuned, in perfect key

Poetry sprang from my fingertips

And car horns sounded like sonnets.

But I have no music left in me

It walked out in your suitcase last night

Winked it's dark eye and said goodbye

And I heard it laughing

All the way down the staircase to the street.

Poetry is a traitor

It makes you write when you don't want to

From places you don't want to revisit

Sing songs so sad they break the heart

And make rhymes of things that will never rhyme again.

©by Voo

August 8, 07

CLANDESTINE RAIN (the splendor of your laughing face)

Clandestine Rain

(the splendor of your laughing face)

Waiting in the carriage at the end of Summer Lane

I pulled the fur close to my neck for the fall of sudden rain

Had brought a chill into the air and the horses stamped their feet

They longed for home, they didn't care who I had come to meet.

The driver cleared his throat and pulled his cap low on his head

A lightning bolt flashed bright nearby and filled my heart with dread

I couldn't understand why you were tarrying so long

I needed wine and candlelight and my ears full of your song.

I needed you close in my arms and dazzling with your smile

The night wore on and thunder roared and accompanied me a while

I thought about your sweet, sweet face, I thought about your hands

That played the violin for me as my eyes devoured the man.

I thought about how you loved me in a way I've never known

A royal, true, and unlike you, with no home of your own

To palace bred and palace born, to loveless life unshared

Marriage arranged so cold, estranged, to a man that never cared.

And you, a gypsy, wild and free with raven eyes and locks

Living life on your own terms free of my rules and clocks

What splendor in your laughing face! What wonder in your eyes!

You brought a truth to life in me that had known, till then, but lies.

Clandestine meetings in the dark, chance meetings on the street

Your eyes would find me and my heart would fall down at your feet

The palace spies, they shadowed me, they looked to find my fault

So often did they spoil our joy and bring our plans to naught.

But sometimes, sometimes, did I slip past and meet you in the night

And share with you such happy times there in the candlelight

But here tonight, I wait for you in the carriage in the rain

And longing for you with a love that feels less like love than pain.

The driver stills the horses now who are chomping at their bits

Wild eyed, they scream in horses' tongues as the jagged lightning hits

My face is buried in my hands, I know that I should go

But if I leave, my soul will grieve and you'll come and will not know.

A letter! I think, I'll leave a note for you there by the tree

Where you oft leave your gifts and poems and carved a heart for me

I hurry to do the task and write, my hands trembling in the strife

But the smile on my lips dies as the carriage door opens

And a cold voice says "Hello, wife!"

© by Voo

Feb 10, 2005 

12:30 a.m.

Nocturne by Secret Garden

play the two videos at same time
for perfect soundtrack.......

I WENT DOWN DEAD AND CAME UP HALF ALIVE

                                    

 

 .....Vapor by Aleah...great song

                       adds so much to this experience....

I Went Down Dead
And Came Back half Alive

backstory.............

(Meeting you 

Was like the end of the blues

At the end of the lonely

At the end of the rainbow

On a Friday night in Memphis

Before the King died.)

There you were

In black leather and hair

Looking, pretending

Like you had not a care.....

And there I was standing

In my leather and lace

My heart like a time bomb

And my life on my face......

Devil in your heart

Devil in your mind

Devil in your intentions

So mistaken for kind.

I was a kid in a candy store

With no money to spend

And you were dark chocolate

Double-coated in sin.

In the shade of the Peabody

The ducks paraded on by

As your lips touched my fingers

Soft as clouds in the sky.

I was enamored by romance

I was dazzled by dust

You convinced me you loved me

We both know it was lust.

There was something inside me

That bid something in you

That then slithered up to me

Hiding lies from the true.

A white horse and white carriage
Rode us through all the rain
My arms pricked with red roses
That ignored all the pain.

To the junk yards of Memphis

With their rusted out cars

We ran singing the blues songs

That came streaming from bars.

In the back of a Thunderbird

With the storm on the roof

You said you wanted me so much

And then gave me the proof.

In the dawn we walked back

In the mist and the fog

To the calls of the whippoorwills

And the growls of a dog.

Our arms ‘twined up together

Our heads heavy with sleep

Our bodies emptied of yearning

And my heart digging deep.

“Till tomorrow.” you whispered

Kissed my cheek and was gone

And I stood in the shadows

So amazed and alone.

Falling later on my bed

The sun burgled inside

Like a thief stealing memories

There I laughed, then I cried.

          And I laughed through the noon time

And I laughed all the day

And I laughed till the darkness

Took the sunshine away.

Then I ran down to Downtown

And I looked for you there

To  the lobby of the Hotel,

To Beale Street and the Square.

I was breathless and anxious

Full of tension and fear

That you’d just been a vision

That my heart had brought here.

So I sat on an iron bench

All bereft and perturbed

Till a black motorcycle

Purred it’s way to the curb.

And your black glove, it beckoned

And I ran to your side

Threw my arms around your waist

As we roared off to ride.

Through the streets and the starlight

To the river of mud

Past the city and country

With such fire in our blood.

Our hair blown back like ribbons

In the sweet Memphis breeze

And we melded together

Like the bark and the trees.

To the grass on a hill top

‘Neath the moonlight so bright

There we clung like two dreamers

Holding on to the night.

And for days I just sleepwalked

As I waited for dark

And your beautiful brown eyes

Full of danger and spark.

So alive in your presence

Like I’d not been before

Just a dead woman walking

Through a mausoleum door.

Looking for something living

That I never had found

On the earth, in the heavens

In the sea, on the ground.

Till that night brought you to me

Out of vapor and hope

And then bound me forever

With a cruel velvet rope.

And your soft voice calls to me

Though I don’t see your face

I have searched every where

And have found not a trace.

But I feel you beside me

And behind and within

Like the caress of a raindrop

And a cold winter wind.

Love, you found me in Memphis

On that wet city street

As you rescued the roses

That had dropped at my feet.

And you smiled as you sang me

 “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

Brought me joy and such misery

When you dropped from my sight.

I  don’t know what I’ve done

I don’t know what I said

I was dead when you met me

Now I’m only half dead.

Haunting me, you remain

In my heart and my mind

Where I still see your face

Though my eyes have gone blind.

To the pain and the pleasure

To the sun and the rain

Every night I go searching

Till I find you again.

end story……………….

(Losing you

Was like gasping for breath

At the end of a nightmare

At the end of the night

And lonely long nights in Memphis

After the King died.) 

By Voo

© April 8, 2012

9:28 p.m.

                                              .............R.I.P. Cousin E............see you on 
                                                 the other side..........
                               

EVERY REMNANT

Every Remnant

(Leonard Cohen-esque)

Stumbling, rumbling, mumbling

I fell

Like week old bread crumbs

From a widower’s hand.

Down in the park

Near dark, with sparks

Of daylight lingering

The night whispered over my shoulder.

There was nothing there

To tip me, trip me, rip me

But shadows sitting on empty benches

But fall I did and ripped in two.

Ripped in two

Apart from you

Became one again

Instead of two.

Somewhere in the distance

From some high rise ghetto dream

Came a trumpet, moaning low

Naming my pain without knowing my name.

Summing, succumbing and numbing

That pain with fire filled gin

I lay back in the night and cried like a baby

With no one to hold me and rock me to sleep.

When daybreak broke

I raised myself

And braced myself

And faced myself.

But all that was there

Was just the memory of you

The symmetry of you

That existed no more.

Love in the ashes

Of a fire that burned with a thousand flames

Is still no more than ash

From a burned out match.

Winds that race and run

And chase and gun

Their engines, have the power

To blow away that ash and every speck

And every remnant of that love.

And blow it did

And blow it does

Blew my hat into the gutter

And my heart down to dark despair.

Blaming you and damning you

And craving you and loving you

I stumbled back to city streets

All wet with rain

And streaked with pain

To pick up the pieces of my life again.

And the trumpet drones

And the trumpet groans

And the trumpet moans

The trumpet that is my soul….

©by Voo

December 1, 2012

10:01 p.m.

for my darling Leonard