CLAUDIA GARY teaches workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Meter, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019), she is also a health/science writer, visual artist, composer of tonal songs and chamber music, and an advisory editor for New Verse Review. Her 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html. See also pw.org/content/claudia_gary
What My Heart Is Saying
A while ago it spoke up
complaining there’s enough
to process here without
waves scattering new nacre
on briny sand
or dredging up seaweed
to glisten then decay
or sending driftwood planks
to scrape at its incline
or drawing out its words
with undertow
reminding me a harbor
is subject to erosion
susceptible to tides
but also now and then
to a starfish.
My Story Has No Villain
Even the stag that stood before your door
and looked me in the eye—making me stop
and wonder, “Should I be elsewhere?”— was not
a villain, may have been my guardian.
And only when I called out, “Let me through!”
did he stand down. Does our present create
the future, or does some idea about
our future block a pathway and create
the present, antlers shuffling warm air?
Legato Notes
1.
Even a flock
of soot-colored grackles
landing on wires
returning to gray clouds
today even this
is a moment of peace
2.
Let me dissolve
out of the narrative
into the moment
Delicate and strong
my soul is not leaving
but sheltering in a corner
3.
From unmade bed and plenitude of sighs
to turmeric and lack of peppercorns
melisma to staccato
staccato to melisma
a peppercorn for your thoughts
a murmur for your kiss
Song for Today
With no time for melisma,
a clear syllabic song
becomes the quiet engine
to move this day along
although the singer slumbers.
Today his peaceful heart
rouses within its rhythmic space
to reason and to start
elaborating newly
a song launched years before
and bring it to fruition
despite a time of war.
Una Corda
To pull away from sound
precipitates a longing
for greater sound.
I build a house of music.
Its cornerstone is silence.
This soft pedal
divides each tone’s foundation
in half and lets it settle
into desire.
Setting
The room is quiet, warm,
soft voices speaking, sighing,
creating poems and later
music spilling over
into a performance
that intrigues, overwhelms.
But how to return
to that quiet room?
With these words I knock
gently at the door.
CLAUDIA GARY teaches workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Meter, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019), she is also a health/science writer, visual artist, composer of tonal songs and chamber music, and an advisory editor for New Verse Review. Her 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html. See also pw.org/content/claudia_gary