I play a scene, at sea in mime,
Alone, notwithstanding your scent,
One breeze coughing yesterday’s dawn,
One quote from a raindrop’s comment.
I sense your shadow on stage left,
Cloaked in black, a silence of voice,
The show as I, as I sing eyes
closed to choice, eyes divorced of choice.
Close the curtain on love – Broadway,
Unplug dim lights and birth your black,
I walk away as one – no one,
A quote from a tongue, in my back.
Call me Hanq 
An interesting use of the theatrical metaphor for lost love, effective in its use of stage direction, curtains, light and darkness.
Thank you, Samuel
Your background is perplexing, she isn’t hand-cuffed to the keyboard (in bondage to work), or something in the room (like she’s typing to get help), but herself as if her expression is restricted, hmmm, lots to ponder. Then you do so much in a compressed space in your poem. Is it that the actor cannot choose love, or whom to love? The pallid lights indicate perhaps love has already faded; it is dying away before the formal proclamation of its end. I adore ‘A quote from a tongue, in my back’. For some reason Lavinia from Titus Andronicus came to mind perhaps as she lost her love and her ability to express herself (the monsters chopped off her hands and cut out her tongue). Then I think my overactive mind needs to hush and simply enjoy your exquisite poetry :).
I like how you backgrounder image changes everytime I visit you.
Nice use of the stage, lights, Broadway to portray your emotions and sentiments ~
Powerful finishing line.
hmmm interesting verse…not sure i understand it completely…i really like the last two lines…a tongue in my back, the tongue a sword, our words cut deep…i like…
Censorship, shackled expression? I don’t know why this is hauting me just back to say it is.
Smile. You can cease to be haunted. Your Lavinia comment was right on. If a lost love is the feeling or freedom of self expression, if a love like this loses choice, but still has to express to breathe, even shackled, well, I’ve just written the rest; from my point of view of course.
Good, now I can get some unhaunted sleep :).
🙂
Very interesting….as a mother of one who is well experienced in lost love and theater it speaks to me of losing the love of writing because money decides what will be onstage. But the love of writing keeps one hitting the keyboard even though they will not be master of the final edit.
Thank you, Susie. I love that line, “…not be the master of the final edit.” Sometimes the comments I get are better than my posts. But you are so right on and I feel the pain of loving a love that has to be expressed, that rarely loves back in kind.
a lost love def. can feel like a show that is over…the moment the curtains close and the lights go dim…heavy and well carved emotions in this henry
Thank you, Claudia.
Sadness and bitterness so palpable here–at sea in mime is a wonderful phrase (a lot of others too.) Kl
I sense your shadow on stage left,
Cloaked in black, a silence of voice,
Could be a relationship, or what Susie hinted at above… love the drama in this piece.
Intriguing and full of evocative imagery.
Oh my, LOVE these lines:
“One quote from a raindrop’s comment”
“The show as I, as I sing eyes closed to choice”
“birth your black”
A tongue in my back?! Good stuff, Henry. Sounds like the worst and best pain.
Stunning– a wonderful sense of craft shines out from this poem! xxj
Henry, this bridges the gap between the heart and the strings. Both are strummed, both can break… but only one can express the longing after the other is broken. Music, like poetry, thrives in the worst conditions – heartbreak, loss, loneliness… a beautiful meditation. Thank you. Peace, Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.com/2012/05/02/driving-lesson/