Ode to Being Placed on Hold

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phone

Ode to Being Placed on Hold

The music rarely
entertains,
but I find
peace between
the notes,
sometimes,
and embrace
the notion that
I’ve been inserted
in that peculiar
capsule between
speech and the
void, imagining
myself somewhere,
floating, free
of care and
gravity,
beer can
satellites
orbiting my head,
with bites of
pungent cheeses
and baguette
circling in
their wake,
a gift, you see,
like rain in
August or
a warm voice
saying hello.

* * *

“Ode to Being Placed on Hold” was drafted during the Tupelo Press 30-30 marathon in August 2015. Many thanks to Mary “marso” of the blog “marsowords” who sponsored and provided the title. The poem has also appeared here several times.

cheese

33 thoughts on “Ode to Being Placed on Hold”

  3. Do you entertain notions of draining those satellites while waiting? The cheese goes well with crusty baguette…and the muse moves on to mush music whist – in another time when phones had cords and clunked the temptation to play overwhelmed: I will take the repast under advisement instead of my usual surl. Thanks, Robert. ‘Twas enough to keep me from opening with a quatrain of tanka at the Magnolia Square fountain, to which I now repair…but only after swiping you work for my second-blog “Commentary, Outrages…” Thanks. Again.

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  4. Pingback: Ode to Being Placed on Hold — O at the Edges from Robert Okaji: made me want beer…but then much does these days – Commentary, Outrages, Prose

  7. I have to be honest when I first saw the title I thought, “Who wants to make an ode about this?” and found it quite funny until when I started reading the poem and saw how enriching it is! Keep up the great work.

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  9. I could interpret this poem to be a metaphor for those times in your life like when you are awaiting a new phase or chapter to your life. For me, It’s being through with school and waiting for that next phase and sometimes, feeling as if the wait is going to last forever, as if I’ve been placed on hold, unsure of what life will tell me when it finally picks up the phone.

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  11. I just swear, and hope again that whoever invented phone trees and Muzak holds is rotting — to Muzak — in Hell. But I admire your more mature spiritual approach.

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  15. I used to hate them. But nowadays I see the benefits of this limbo. A little like riding an empty elevator with music playing. In our super-fast world we can use every break we can get. Great piece!

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