Une Vie En Musique
©April 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Susurrando, susurrante,
A voice from another world
Speaks to me in honey-tones
Leaning seductively, caresses
My dream-state, and says:
Conduct yourself well
And tune to the bourdon-hum of life
Play your life-song rubato,
Steal from Time:
Steal all that you can steal
From the hours that crawl by
Seducing you with sweets.
Be not a slave to punctuality*,
And strangling parameters of
Suburban ennui.
Shift tempo now, do it suddenly
– make your life a rondeau.
Play it subito –
Hark back to your
Days of happy childhood,
Circle back to the present
Return to a later unhappy past,
Keep circling to the recent
Present, to the near-future.
Here’s a shadowed corner,
You can linger here, for now.
Sing of saudade, feel the
Longing sweep over you.
Are you done, now?
Good! Go live allegretto
Avoid the lure of tenebroso
For too long; just a touch
Makes one lacrimoso, – Enough!
That’s one tear too many.
Keep them for another day.
As you go through the hours,
Accelerando, then decelerando.
Why be predictable?
Consistency is the demon
That will kill.
Keep circling and return
Ad libitum to the start of it all.
I listen to the voice,
And heed its message.
Smiling, I lean into the darkness,
And whisper back:
Make my life a fermata.
And now, come, Messenger,
Come to me now, and
Piano, pianissimo,
Take me away!
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Note: I used The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (online) to come up with the musical terms in my poem (although I knew most of them, already).
* Reference to Oscar Wilde’s quip (which I must have certainly internalized as a young pre-teen): “Punctuality is the thief of Time.”
Here’s the prompt for Day 17 from NaPoWriMo:
And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to find, either on your shelves or online, a specialized dictionary. This could be, for example, a dictionary of nautical terms, or woodworking terms, or geology terms. Anything, really, so long as it’s not a standard dictionary! Now write a poem that incorporates at least ten words from your specialized source. Happy writing!