Poetry Corner: How Music Saves Us

POETRY CORNER

How Music Saves Us (Photo – Giulio Salvatori).

– 7/04/18

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

It’s a fine and meaningful coincidence ​that I and Rick are at the time of publication of this Poetry Corner, participating in idealistic international musical congress in Portugal, ANIMUSIC, that has very much the idealistic aim of creating community and peace in the world through music, music scholarship and performance. For this year , and last year, they invited us to to add our poetry and flute to the program. We’ve added Mariko Kitakubo, a tanka poet, to the program this year as well. The conference is organized by Giulio Salvatori and Patricia Lopes Bastos (you can see Giulio’s photo image and poem on our previous Poetry Corner). The real starting point for this theme came from the wonderful poet Ellyn Maybe. Amazing how we all come together, from near and far! ANIMUSIC is taking place at the ​Museo Malhoa Museum in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.

~ Kathabela​​​

The Animusic Congress poster with painting by ​Jose Malhoa (Photo – Kathabela Wilson).

Ellyn Maybe

Someday Our Peace Will Come

one day poetry dropped from the sky
and the animals grew iambic pentameter tails​ ​
and the people breathed in stars

one day music dropped from the sky
and the architecture turned symphonic
and the people breathed in harmony

one day memory dropped from the sky
and the past present and future sifted like flour
and the people breathed in wonder

smoke and ash
as distant as two sides of the same coin

Originally written and published for S.A. Griffin’s project, The Poetry Bomb

Ο Ο Ο

Roy Kindleberger

Healing
He sat at his keyboard. It’s set to Fender Rhodes. Because he likes that sound. He really didn’t know how to play. Yet he’d created the first notes to a song. His song. It echoes through his head. Like a song created over forty years ago. A song that eventually played for twenty-six minutes. A song that started with a single note.

in his forties
he left his old life
and started again
the healing begins
when he lets it

Ο Ο Ο​

Barry Plamondon

That Little Radio

And when I was at my lowest low
Still it was music then I heard in my head
From that little radio there beside the bed
Somehow I knew intrinsically if I should go
I would leave this world a happy man
For I had heard my one last song
When all else that could be was wrong
This being deemed according to our Lord’s plan
It was not my fate to pass on that night
And I am here even still today
Listening always to that sweet music play
Each note a tiny point of perfect light
Music I know now has been with man forever
From the first rhythms of the drum he did pound
Until today’s nearly perfect digital sound
To understand what it meaans to me I still do endeavor
An answer that does not easily come to light
I only know that music pulled me through
Something not even medical science could do
I owe my life to a little radio’s song on my darkest night.

Ο Ο Ο

Old music (Photo – Tom Clausen).

Gary Hotham

music two centuries old-
the color flows
out of the teabag

Gar​y​ published ​this poem in Modern Haiku, Winter-Spring 1982, Vol XIII, No. 1.​ It received an Eminent Mention Award in that issue.

Ο Ο Ο

Nicholas David Klacsanzky

new tabl​a​
the smells of India
in one strike

​Nicholas won second place in H. Gene Murtha senryu contest​ 2018 with this poem.

Ο Ο Ο

Tom Clausen

without any music
I catch myself
tapping in time

sun pops out
a construction worker
breaks into song

winter wind
the voice of one tree
after another

Ο Ο Ο​

​Erika Wilk

Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto

one of my most favorites
transports me to a time

when the city I love most
tells me to let go
I cried for a long time

Ο

Beethoven painting at the Museum of Music in Lisbon, Portugal (Photo – Kathabela Wilson).

Ellyn Maybe, Southern California based poet and United States Artist nominee 2012, has performed both nationally and internationally as a solo artist and with her band. Her work has been included in many anthologies and she’s the author of numerous books. She also has a critically acclaimed poetry/music album “Rodeo for the Sheepish” (Hen House Studios). In addition to her band, her latest poetry/music project is called ellyn & robbie: Skywriting with Glitter.

Roy Kindleberger ​lives in Bothell, Washington. He ​says: “A single note, set of chords, a poem can start out small and then turn into something so much bigger. It’s an analogy, of how a single choice or decision can change your life.”

Barry Plamondon lives in British Columbia. He says: “My wife and I have 7 children, and everyone relates to music in one way or another, with many playing an instrument or two. I myself played the guitar for 30 years until suffering two major strokes, at which time I turned to writing poetry.”

Gary Hotham lives in Scaggsville, Maryland. He still enjoys centuries of music and a strong cup of tea.

Nicholas ​David ​Klacsanzky​ lives in ​Kyiv, Ukraine​. He says: “​Music allows us to shut off our mental self​.”​

Tom Clausen lives in the centrally isolated finger lakes area “where my back yard woods and fields near Cornell and Ithaca provide endless prompts for life sustaining imagery, and sustaining senses throughout four very changing seasons. Music has been the balm and solace to get me through the inevitable most challenging times of every season and every day… I cannot give enough thanks to the musicians who have created the very soundtrack of my life that carries me with hope day by day, night by night.”

E​rika Wilk​ lives in Pasadena and is active with Poets on Site Study Groups and performances. She says ”
I found a visit to Salzburg, my home town, especially emotional that year (1972), my first return after moving to California. It was that piece of music that made me feel “at home​.​“

Ο Ο Ο

♣ You can add your contribution to our Poetry Corner in the form of a thought, or a poem, in our comment box below​.