Uncubing Tesseract

A triplet of notes,
a single wavering flame
echoed by another in a gust of melody.

Hush of voice unweathered
modulates light and promise tethered
by emotional tourniquet

until the song
spreads wings and skips
on time changes like glottal stops.

The volume dies, almost to a whisper,
and a syncopated drum contains the pressure
before bass strings begin to wind up the volume

and everything bursts in a downpour,
an electronic thunderstorm –
the spark of light I needed.

Kim M. Russell, 28^th April 2018

My response to The Poetry School NaPoWriMo prompt for Day 28: Music

Ali has started today’s prompt with a quotation: “Where words fail, music speaks.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

He would like us to write a poem while listening to music. He says it can be the same song on repeat, or perhaps an album of songs all by the same artist, or an entire piece by a composer, but we shouldn’t do this with the radio, a mixed-artist playlist, or anything like that. He wants us to sink into and feel the music, which can’t be done if it keeps changing.

Once our music is playing, we should begin to free-write, without stopping, until we can feel the poem emerge. He says that, at this point, it will probably be tempting to turn the music off, or mentally drown it out. We shouldn’t do that but should try and let it in and let the rhythm, the melody, the tone and the mood affect the way we write.

There are no example poems today, but a nod in the general direction of two poets who write with music very much in mind: Bridget Minamore and  Rishi Dastidar.

I listened to ’Tourniquet’ by the British band Tesseract, from their album Polaris, and this is what I came up with.