Thin gold wraps her neck
She wears elegance today
Shining her jewels

At low of night she strokes
Familiar tastes exquisite,
And quietly invokes
The spirit of laureate --

An orphic instrument
Unfit to take for granted.
It’s profound atonement
Stirs in her heart despondent.

Her fragile shell’s embrace
Of wood and gut and metal
Point out her shallow race
And weakness fundamental.

Yet all the night she moils,
Mistrusting augmentation,
And secretly despoils
The overzealous beacon.

-- Kerry Herrmann

I am out of tune
It doesn't matter what you play
The monochrome sound will remain
Even with new keys
The beauty of that piece
Is mangled in my strings.
So please,
Just leave me here in the dust
To rot in this silent room because
I am beyond repair
I will never play again...

After dropping her child at school
the day was a dream only hers
when she could make her own rule
follow it for all those hours.

She would sit on some house terrace
see the busy steps passing by
trying to gauge from their pace
the errands written in their eyes.

She would watch the life of birds
amused how they labored for a nest
and when falling day drew homeward
folded sunned wings into rest.

Spread her eyes beyond the concrete
above the trees far into the haze
where young kites were taught flying feat
by mothers circling the summer blaze.

Everyday all things were renewed
seasons rolled a movie before her
all that even though already viewed
was never bereft of a sense of wonder.

How her hours flew was not known
days turned to years as a rule
her child in no time was grown
no more she needed to go to school.

Her maquillage so delightful
Her waves of thought insightful
Her bloomage eyes rightful
Her all to me, the serene hope.

It is again, plunk into pit of being
See it as is, truer than what is believing
Misconceiving notion was, still quizzed
Taken back to cage humility

Sterile, these tears, flush waves emotion
Devotion to you dear, causing commotion
Hardly do I go there, yet comes the missing
Insisting on revisiting the elicit

Still pouring over, drains illusion
Intrusion cruel, truth bearing contusion
Purge hid secrets kept by psyche's rule
Plant seeds in dry field's thought

Caught waiting for monsoon to wash over
Soak essence enduring, be nature, know her
Rain overcomes me, shell relinquished
Distinguished, I sprout again

And then, I remember once more
I am extinct