Between the visits to the shock ward
The doctors used to let you play
On the old upright Baldwin
Donated by a former patient
Who is said to be quite stable now.
And all day long you played Chopin,
Badly and hauntingly, when you weren't
Screaming on the porch that looked
Like an enormous birdcage. Or sat
In your room and stared out at the sky.
You never looked at me at all.
I used to walk down to where the bus stopped
Over the hill where the eucalyptus trees
Moved in the fog, and stared down
At the lights coming on, in the white rooms.
And always, when I came back to my sister's
I used to get out the records you made
The year before all your terrible trouble,
The records the critics praised and nobody bought
That are almost worn out now.
Now, sometimes I wake in the night
And hear the sound of dead leaves
against the shutters. And then a distant
Music starts, a music out of an abyss,
And it is dawn before I sleep again.
In what way is this a poem? It's just prose chopped up into short lines and arranged to look like verses. As Robert Frost (you should post one of his ) said of this sort of thing: "like playing tennis with no net".
eleanor; That is beautifully spoken by David Bailie - terrific, moving timing, what a voice (Stockport born - hooray!) & a face that has seen a thing or two.
Not that I'm riding piggyback on a great thread about an incredible poem, but if you want some very good cheer to counteract his sad (but accurate) world view, go and look at the picture in this thread: