• POETRY CORNER

      How Music Saves Us (Photo - Giulio Salvatori).

      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).

      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).

      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).

      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​.


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      Contributor

        • Kathabela Wilson

          Kathabela Wilson is a local poet/writer/artist and musician. Her Poets Salon has become an international respected must read in the poetry world. She's the creator and host of the Pasadena-based group, “Poets on Site.”

          Colorado Boulevard is your place for enlightening events, informative news and social living for the greater Pasadena area.
          We strive to inform, educate, and work together to make a better world for all of us, locally and globally.

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      Comments

      1. Alice Pero says:

        Wonderful musical poetry.

      2. Alex Nodopaka says:

        Bill Haley and his Comets

        saved me and my sister
        from a life of doldrums
        when I was a very young
        teenager.

        Rocking away I spun her
        over my knee as if she were
        a straw puppet.

        My being ten years older
        her weight at six years old
        was feathersome.

        Our mother’s eyes bulged
        from their sockets at every
        carousel turn as she
        begged me to stop
        the music so I wouldn’t
        break my sister’s back.

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