Forgetting Charm
Even your bones remember what you’ve long discarded.
This field of stone grows beyond sight.
In our house the tang of burnt sugars.
You say I love you in four languages I do not speak,
but never in the one I claim.
We light fires with stolen paper.
Douse them with stored rain.
Fragmented memories fill our cupboards.
Did I once know you?
Take these words from me.
Bury them in daylight.
* * *
“Forgetting Charm” was published in The Icarus Anthologyin August 2017.
Music: “Crypto” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licen
Nice piece and nice background music in the mix.
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Thanks, Don. I enjoy pairing poetry to music.
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The mind keeps its own mysterious counsel, independent of our consciousness. (K)
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It surely does!
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Fabulous. The music enhances the eerie quality, somehow I’m still so caught up in the words – such that I still cling to the romance there.
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Thanks, James. I’d like to produce more of these, but time, alas, eludes me.
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Ooo0, your recording enhances the haunting phrases.
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Thanks, Jazz. The “charm” poems are all oddities, and this one seemed suited to a recording.
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There are more charm poems?
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Yep. If you plug “charm” into the search function, you’ll find a half-dozen or so others.
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Love the line about someone able to say I love you in four languages, “but never in the one I claim.” Had a few relationships where the connection withered as the miscommunication grew.
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Miscommunication kills off many relationships.
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i love both the words and the music –
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Thank you, Beth!
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The field of stones grows beyond sight… very good image…. a reminder not to neglect saying what we feel before it is too late! Love this poem!
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Beware the stones! Especially those beyond sight.
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Yes!!
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I agree with others that the reading and the music work well together. Besides the four languages line, I’m also partial to the “we light fires with stolen paper” one as well. It’s so full of specific mystery.
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Thanks, Frank. It’s taken me some time to figure out what I was writing about…
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“We light fires with stolen paper” – wish I’d said that.
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That lighting is true in multiple ways.
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