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Poetry Magnum Opus

A tea and moondance


eclipse

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In daylight I watch the ghosts of Tilbury
dance, from my wheelchair I wait for the night
to advance where I join them for sherry,
tea and a moondance. Spirits are quiet
till taking tea with a moonlit infusion.
I take the hands of the newly deceased,
we waltz through events of their life with passion,
they move with flair, fellow ghosts are pleased.
My essence by the ghosts is distilled,
in heaven a cup of me is poured,
friends and relatives by angels are called
to sip, sway. An empty cup is stored
until I am ready for paradise. Through
windows ghosts watch me drink an earthly brew.

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"in heaven a cup of me is poured."

 

WOW. This whole damn thing was WOW. Haunting is the EXACT word. And wonderful.

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David W. Parsley

Barry, this is downright creepy and highly inventive. I like the internal and end rhymes very much! No vain repetitions, great movement and theme. My only objection is the artifically inverted phrases in lines 9 and 10 - really strains.

 

- Dave

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Try it without the inversions and see if you still like it. I like fooling around with inversions myself, but I usually get complaints when I set them out on the table.

Maybe the first "dance" could be "gather", since they need to arrive and are going to do more than dance, which you describe shortly.

I might opt out of some of the "ghosts" - the second one, "fellow ghosts are" might be "everyone is"; the third one could be "spirits" (nice little pun with "distilled"); and the fourth could be "they" to drop in just a bit more of the unknown mystery.

 

I like the tone of this and the spookiness, especially the distilled part (being a fan of distilled spirits).

 

 

[if you find my suggestions unwelcome, let me know and I will cease and desist.]

from the black desert

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi Barry, I really liked this poem. I loved the lightness of this piece, it had spiritual movement. I didn't find it spooky at all. The imagery slid through my mind like silk. The only thing that weighted it down for me was the repetition of the word "ghosts". I think Gatekeeper's assessment is spot on, after the initial use of "ghosts" in the first line the beauty of the image might be better maintained with other word choices.

I don't know why because it is styled quite differently but it reminded me of Wallace Stevens' Disilusionment of Ten O'Clock but I liked yours better. Not bad being compared with Wallace Stevens.

~~Tink

~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~

For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com

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I almost missed this: though can't expound further than the valid points and comments already made.. except to note the way your skill of enjambment progresses. I particularly liked, "Spirits are quiet/ till taking tea with a moonlit infusion." B.

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Interesting, with a sort of wreathy swirly atmosphere. Punctuation seems to work better with periods than commas.

Drown your sorrows in drink, by all means, but the real sorrows can swim

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