Strings
Inspired by an old and popular karaoke number
They told me
before I could profess my love for lyrics
I had to die on a guitar string
and so I tucked away my pen
and listened
Deserted
in a dim-lit basement
its snug air pouring intrusive intents
to measure my life
by welling irises
and shot glasses drained
within the languor of lips
as I half-bite
a verse etherized
with a distant lover’s pith
deep down
withering wan
of emotional resonance
receding with time
like the earth
that had sloped down and softened
so I could stoop
into this sinking moment
to a guitar’s tingling
one-sided cajoling
indelicately licking
rosy bleeds of an evening
as it winds into a low gold
and he hungers on
never once flinching
m a u l i n g
through my poem’s diurnal sky
rendered moot and powerless
in his strum’s gauged luminescence
like he could see
just where my light trailed into dark
retelling my hushed story
as I cling
to my sorrow restrained syllabic
to atone and bestow
meaning to a mere chord
cutting through my veins
spilling in trebled notes
laying in a sepulchral glaze
c r a d l e d
between the hunch of his arms.
Notes: Loosely inspired by this famous Karaoke number:
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