HARRY LISTENS TO MISTER PARKER PLAY
wind howls through trees round
corners shaking bushes windows eaves
lightning fractures night and all
you locked up in memory too fragile
to be handled comes tumbling out
hail batters panes a flurry
of insistent notes damn it listen
this is important people are hurting here
when the rain starts after hail subsides
and the wind eases off to casual riffs
you are floating on tears the liquid breath
of every living in pain creature in the world
and no you do not can not understand this is the fundamental
music of life too simple too complex for words
thoughts movement all you can do is listen
LISTEN until silence comes and you find yourself
more alone than ever you have been…
__________
Michael L. Newell has lived abroad for one-third of his life in thirteen countries on five continents. He has recently had poems published in Current and Verse-Virtual.
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excellent poem
This is a phenomenal poem, the poem carries this reader into the deeply felt space the way music also does. It allow me to experience a connection to all humanity in our common vulnerability and brokenness. There’s so much humility and life in this poem.