Dreamers travel back roads
Music streaming from the car
A vehicle with personality
Rather than looks
Dreamers are spontaneous and colorful
A collage of all their experiences
Like a girl scouts merit badges
Collaged in a swath across your chest
Dreamers have tattoos
Stories branded into their skin
Thoughtful as they unravel the story for you
Like red carpet across your mind
Picking up speed as it goes
And abruptly ending
Dream with me
1-21-14
You are a work of art:
Guitar case open
Standing on the cobblestones
Framed by wrought iron and stone
Your voice carries down the road
Enchanting the passerby
Earning smiles and coins –
Guitar of lacquered obsidian
Edged in gold
Sings in your hands
A bright duet –
Your hair shines softly
Hazelnut, brown as comfort
The black and white lines
Of your elegant suit
Are crisp as the cold air –
The bright blue of your eyes
Squinting in the sorrow of song
You finish, leaving the air thrumming
The sporadic applause like fireflies
Twinkling on and off around you
The slow waterfall of gold and silver
Fit for a dragons hoard
A gift to the flawless artist
Who starts right up again
For the joy of the song
For the hearts he will touch
9-21-12
You played me
Blue strings extending straight to my veins
Fluting notes scattered like freckles
Butterflies murmur in stomach drums
A symphony of tingles when we kiss
I sway to your heartbeats rhythm
Deft notes whisper a sweet duet
Your voice, a coffee colored cellos song
Lute strings brushed like eyelashes softly closing
Fingers running over skin like piano keys
Hum of contentment rising out of a golden brass chest
The music of loving you
2-28-13
Last of day
Reverse of dawn
Lights upon
That face
Beard – a fire in the light
Your shadow jumps with you
Off the stool
Like a throne
Guitar – black and sleek
Fingers stumbling
On half-remembered past
Singing hesitantly
Strong and soft
Painfully precious
Notes you’ve touched
Into being
Silver and gold
Hum to your bidding
Perched in the glow
Blue pouring into a pool
Of exaggerated sincerity
Gathering our grins
The song pulls you in again
Eyes wandering
Lips whispering
Till you pick it up again
Cavort through the room
If only you could see
Your music is magic to me
9-9-12
I love it all
Spellbound, I am lost in the details
Your foot keeping time
Head turned to catch the tune
The space between lips and harmonica
The dance of fingers on strings
How quickly your hands fall into new patterns
Blue eyes hungry to mirror his notes
Laps and arms full of music
Maybe it is a guitar thing to slouch
Cradling your lady into your chest
A circle of orange and brown folding chairs in your garage
The center where the notes collide
Beautiful and shimmering as a mirage
Overwhelmed, I sit on the side
But you see every drop in the river as they fly by
Music can hold enormous power in memories and experiences, transporting us instantly to an age, location, or person. What sonic joys, mysteries, disbelief, and clarity have you experienced? Identify songs of influence in your life and explore them like variations on a theme, melding syntax and song structure, recalling the seriousness or levity that accompanies. Whether it’s an account of when a specific song first entered your life, the process of learning to play a song, teaching someone a song, experiencing the same song in different places as it weaves through your life, unbelievable radio timing, sharing songs with those in need, tracking the passing down of songs, creative song analysis etc, I am interested in those ineffable moments and welcoming submissions of your own variations on a theme, as drawn from your life’s soundtrack. Please email submissions to meganentropy@gmail.com and keep an eye out for others’ Variations.
**(“song” is a broad phrase: could be a pop song, a traditional tune, a symphony, commercial jingles, a hummed lullaby, 2nd grade recorder class horror stories, etc)**
Sasha Kasoff’s poetry can be found in two self-published books and many anthologies, magazines, and other literary presses. She is currently earning her MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University in England. Look for her author pages on Goodreads and Facebook.