You are not the music that plays in my head
drum of my soul
You are not the light of my dismal life
lightning blues in the clouds
You are not the taste of liquor on my tongue
crushed Concords drenching my face
You are not my shining star
galaxy, flat as between the hands of God
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
for Day 7 of 28 Days of Unreason & dVerse Meeting the Bar & for You
“What beauty in this the darkest music
over which you can hear the lightest music of human
behavior, the tender connection between men and galaxies.” ~ Jim Harrison
from Warbler / Dead Man’s Float
Beautiful!
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I appreciate you reading!
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There is a lot here that is very special. Reading and re-reading. Lightning blues, grape crushing and drenching with wine, and that last line, god playing flatty-cake with the galaxy…
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The part about the Concords has real images for me – once my dad decided to ship a box of them to someone – it didn’t have a happy ending.
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What a beautiful paean of love! That you respond to Harrison and Audioslave says a lot about the rocking poet you are, Jilly! You must really kick a– in the classroom. Shakespeare amplified!
Back to the poem… the “you” in this poem is fortunate; they have attained a place of praise and honor according to the poet’s voice. Well done!
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I do play this CD in my classroom (the appropriate songs). Thanks for your kinds comments, Charley!
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I like the call and answer, and the gathering of images. I particularly like that flattened Galaxy – a pulling out of the viewpoint. It’s quite filmic.
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Filmic – nice word. Thanks, Sarah!
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I often find your poems have a cinematic quality – long sweeping shots.
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Love the rejection of the negative with those answers… marvelous and so happy to see you combining the prompts.
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I really enjoy this type of poetry – I teach the Sonnets to my students and they find it intriguing.The rejection echoes are inspired by that Audio Slave song, so I had lots of help.
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I like that flat galaxy between the hands of God.
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Thank you! I have a science-teacher friend who is also a person of faith. He talks about how the flattened galaxy can be thought of in those terms – it’s comforting.
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I love the shape, the form and the ‘distorted’ positive echoes (or reverbs) in this poem, Jill! It’s full of sense-awakening imagery. I especially enjoyed ‘lightning blues in the clouds’ and ‘galaxy, flat as between the hands of God’.
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Thanks, Kim! I really enjoyed writing in this style.
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I like the power of God expressed in a capacity to flatten the universe – the uncreator -and the whole contrariness of the poem’s tone with its two voices. Uniquely creative Jilly
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Thank you, Laura. Our universe is indeed flat and who knows what all that dark matter really is?
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I love this line — “galaxy, flat as between the hands of God.” Gorgeous!
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Thanks, Jo! It is a lovely thought, isn’t it?
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Beautifully done.
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Much appreciated, Sherry!
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I got a galaxy too 🙂 Spiralling out from sounds in the head to the confines of the universe.
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I noticed that!
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Great minds 🙂
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Oh, those last two lines were splendid. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
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Thank you!
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Such an engaging write Jill- I love it. Especially the crushed concords line.
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Thanks! I grew up with Concord grapes and they are unlike anything else.
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The dual voices make a wonderful contrast, like a pianist hitting both low and high notes alternately
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Ooo – nice way to look at it! (Do you play?)
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I like the different voices here and how you combined the prompts–the negation works perfectly here.
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🙂
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Good job! Sounds like a pretty tough life!!
Dwight
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I’m suffering; no doubt! 😉
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The last line just about floored me!
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So glad! Just one speculative way of looking at the fact that our galaxy is relatively flat – kind of blows holes in some of the scientific theories. There are a bunch of ‘we don’t knows’ orbiting our collective knowledge and that feeds poetry 🙂
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Love the negative to positive musical contrapuntal slant to this.
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I really did feed from the format of that song; that made it easier to write it that way. Thanks for reading!
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Some of the best poetry is set to music 🙂 A stellar write, Jilly…especially your final couplet!
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That’s very kind of you, Lynn!
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kaykuala
Classic way of saying it, Jilly!.By way of contention and providing answers the next minute!
Hank
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Appreciate it, Hank!
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Beautiful images here, Jilly. I found myself going back to read it several times. I saw in a comment that you enjoyed writing in the Via Negativa. I did too. Great prompt from Bjorn.
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