What’s old is new

Ever since going through all drawers and files (as we moved out of the top two floors of our Brooklyn house and consolidated ourselves in the bottom two)…I’ve been going through files of unpublished poetry, or poetry published in long gone ephemeral small press publications.

Some I’ve gleefully tossed!

Some I’m revising.

And once in a while – I find something I’ve no quarrel with at all. For example:

Concert

            Oboe and

a double bass

big as a baby elephant !

 

            Dear mother

            were you

            that

            big ?

 

Something’s all wrong

with this religious hush

 

The seat’s too tight

we’re in the dark

 

            The player’s hand

            cocks against the bow

Was I

the right size

mother?

                                    this long vibration seizing

DoubleBasspix

      DoubleBasspix

DoubleBasspix

 

 

 

4 Responses

  1. Tom Patterson
    |

    Lovely poem, Martha. Glad you found it. Hope you’ll assemble a ‘Selected Poems’ book one of these days.

    • Martha King
      |

      Yep, am thinking just that! Thanks, Tom.

      • Laurie Price
        |

        I agree wholeheartedly. It seems I’ve seen way too little of your work over the years, Martha, though what I’ve seen, I’ve so enjoyed and there are phrases and moments that really stuck in my brain/ear.

        • Martha King
          |

          Thanks, Laurie. I’ve spent much time in recent years on memoir (Outside/Inside) which I hope will be published sometime in the near future. Glad to be back to poetry, though. Different. A movement in time. YES!