Robert W. Service, 'Guitarist'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Guitarist

His aged hands were grained with grime
Warped was his old guitar,
And as I paused a little time,
So near and yet so far,
He looked at me with sightless stare,
Yet knew that I was there.

He must have done. He played an air
I sang in days gone bye.
'Twas Jeannie of the Nut-brown Hair;
As softly as a sigh
He played, yet oh! So sad the strain
It woke an ancient pain.

For though she left me all alone,
Bleak years and years away,
I think my minstrel must have known -
His jazz he ceased to play,
And strummed so gently just for me
That heart-break melody.

Blind folk, I think, are often fey,
And second sight have got,
For every time I pass that way,
Although he knows me not,
He looks at me with empty stare
And plays that old-time air.

. . . There by the tragic plane we stand:
No kisses, only sighs.
Her hand is groping for my hand,
Her eyes down in my eyes . . .
Dark Tunesmith, echo my despair!
Soft, soft her nut-brown hair.

By Robert W. Service

Sharon Olds, "35/10", Jane Betz, "21/62", Rudyard Kipling, "My Rival"

[med_cat]

Sharon Olds

35/10

Brushing out my daughter's dark
silken hair before the mirror
I see the grey gleaming on my head,
the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it
just as we begin to go
they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck
clarifying as the fine bones of her
hips sharpen? As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a small
pale flower on the tip of a cactus;
as my last chances to bear a child
are falling through my body, the duds among them,
her full purse of eggs, round and
firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about
to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled
fragrant hair at bedtime. It's an old
story--the oldest we have on our planet--
the story of replacement.

(1984)

~~( Two more: )

The Tale of Tinúviel by J.R.R. Tolkien

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

The Tale of Tinúviel

The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains cold.
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.

( He heard there oft the flying sound )