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Prelude: The Attunement


David W. Parsley

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David W. Parsley

PRELUDE: THE ATTUNEMENT

May: I am looking for your voice. The night

is gravely wounded by your absence. Each mountain

yields to what cannot be learned of the darkness: a fading

more powerful than persuasions of the bright

unrememberable; clouds like gauze or ermine

drawn across the distance of vision receding

to impermanence. The air assumes without pain

its duties. Burden of separation is lifting

with mist from the dew. Each naked embrace of your arm

I commit to the memory of hills, fog afloat dawn

on their sleeping shoulders. Trees lick the light

like infant giraffes at the ear of day. The repertoire

of the forest is endless. The wilderness tunes like an orchestra.

Morning comes. We wait for you to conduct.

 

 

first published in Poetry Panorama of the Utah State Poetry Society

winner Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts

© 2011 David W. Parsley

Parsley Poetry Collection

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Larsen M. Callirhoe

nice to meet you david and welcome to pmo forum. this read aloud was very smooth and is very lovely detailed. i enjoyed the layout and format. don't see to much the layout a vision the way you envision her. i use flowers and seas and creatures in nature. this pom really got me thinking and cranked up and got my poetry juices revved up.

 

victor michael

Larsen M. Callirhoe

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Ambitious metaphor and simile. I prefer poetry written with ambition.

 

lick the light

 

I like that sound of lick/light and the notion of tangible/intangible made concrete.

 

I tend to find polysyllables less musical/solid, but we have an eclectic mix of styles/tastes on this forum.

 

badge

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Welcome, Dave. I'm excited that you've joined.

 

This terrific sonnet somehow captures where I am in the moment, and it weighs heavily upon me. There's a sense of the fog lifting that comes with the morning, and it serves almost like a reprieve from the burden(s) of the long night(s). But the sky is big, and there's no end to it in sight. The spirit can dissipate and head for the horizon, even at the highest rate of speed, but at the end of the day (literally) is just another night. I loved it.

 

Tony

 

 

PS -- You had mentioned formatting, and I was going to reply by pm, but I figured I'd say something about it here so other members can benefit, too. Some members appear to be having trouble formatting their poems. I think this is because they are copying from word documents and pasting into the board's rich text editor. I copy and paste, too, but I use the board's standard editor. If posting poems by copying and pasting is yielding undesireable results, try switching to the standard editor and see if that helps.

 

Use THIS control to switch between the standard and rich text editors.

Here is a link to an index of my works on this site: tonyv's Member Archive topic

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David W. Parsley

Victor, Badge, Tony, I am very moved by your notes of welcome and appreciation for this Mason(esque) sonnet. Your comments are so insightful! And the spontaneous response to the imagery and language helped me to experience the poem all over again, as if someone else had written it.

 

Victor, I am glad you to took time to read it aloud. Such a luxury to taste the words themselves - many miss that part of the experience.

 

Thanks for sharing the moment of inspiration, too. Clearly, more poems will be coming and I can hardly wait to see them. I already feel like I have found a second home.

 

- Dave

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David W. Parsley

Oh, and a special thanks to Tony for the tip on formatting with the rich text editor. I'll give that a try.

 

I'm impressed with your resonsiveness as site administrator. Clearly a labor of love, but not all sites are blessed with such dedication and competence.

 

- Dave

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Hello and welcome David. An unusual sonnet form with an equally unusual rhyme scheme which you use well. The piece drifts gently on a tide of intangible and tangible. Interesting use of “a fading” although “unrememberable” tends to grate somewhat on the shingle for me. “Each naked embrace of your arm” is well timed and brings the poem to a tangible plane and though the imagery used is colourful and diverse, I couldn't help notice the word “like” which you use 5 times. Having said these things I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poem and hope you will feel comfortable with us and enjoy your time here. Benjamin

 

 

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Hi Dave, Wow, a Mason Sonnet, and you come close to conquering the unique rhyme scheme of this specific form. As Badger pointed out, an ambitious endeavor. I like the piece, I feel a sense of longing floating on the fog. It is quite beautiful.

 

~~Tink

~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~

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

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David W. Parsley

Benjamin: Your critique reawakened an old dissatisfaction I have had with this poem. Guess I needed a twenty year break to figure out how to reduce my "like" count from five down to three. Much better now, thanks to your gentle prompting. I daresay most folks will not even know where the two missing "likes" used to be!

 

Tinker: I have written three masonesque sonnets, and they all ended up with this rhyme scheme. Guess it's just the way my inner movement twists! One of them will appear here eventually, but it is out on the street being considered for periodical publication. ("Sea Breeze at the Metro Station." You'll just have to wait. -_- )

 

Again, thanks to all for the appreciative and insightful assessments. It is a better poem now.

 

- Dave

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Larsen M. Callirhoe

hi dave. i just reread the poem here you posted. i get a different outlook not reading it aloud. reading it aloud it cuts like butter very smoothly. other then useage of the word "like" more in said sonnent it is a great poetic type poem. i tend to use also in poems the words or expressions examples a lot myself lol. "like," would," "could," "should," "mustof," "couldof." "wouldof," and "shouldof," lol and a few other type of word over kill usage epressions.

 

 

 

victor

Larsen M. Callirhoe

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David W. Parsley

Thanks to Victor and to Eclipse for appreciative, fun commentary.

 

Concession to Tink (and perhaps others squirming in silence): I modified the form claimer to note alteration of the classic Mason sonnet. As mentioned above, this particular rhyme scheme has proven to be fluid for me. I like the difficulty inherent to the small number of rhymes in the original form and subtleties encouraged by the distance between rhymes in build-up to the volta. Add some slant rhyme and enjambment, a little flexibility - voila: Dave doing his thing and sharing with friends of like vibe! :-8)

 

Thanks to all who have found it worth their while to contemplate this piece.

 

- Dave

Edited by David W. Parsley
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