Orphic Playlist
Ask Alexa for the playlist called “Heaven.”
Fats Domino, Dylan, Elvis, Beyonce, and Lucinda all ache for heaven.
Who knows how inspiration possesses us?
Even Zepplin ripped off Spirit to ascend the stairway to heaven.
Strum an air guitar dragged all around the room,
Sing, and girls scream as if stolen to heaven.
Groupies, glamor and musk, the easy conquest of power chords.
Can our life be saved by the god of song and lifted to heaven?
The scent of jasmine and lavender swirl.
Where in the garden blooms the rose of heaven?
Everyone’s story accepts a miracle and a curse.
Do you want to know what I think is heaven?
Love is blunder, drunken karaoke in a hotel bar.
Happiness in the first act does not lead to heaven.
Today, the blues, the long black snake snaps and moans.
Rage or grief consumes and consigns us to hell, not heaven.
A cold night warmed in the meadow of someone’s thighs.
Planets, moon, and stars cascade like jewels falling from heaven.
Copyright © Lyman Grant 2018
Lyman Grant, retired professor and dean at Austin Community College, is a recent transplant in the Shenandoah Valley. He has published five volumes of poems, most recently Old Men on Tuesday Mornings (Alamo Bay Press, 2017). His poems and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies including Dallas Morning News, Texas Observer, descant, Concho River Review, Is This Forever or What, Feeding the Crow, The Beatest State, and The Great American Wise Ass Anthology. The poem “Orphic Playlist” is one of a series of poems, in various forms, responding to arias. “Orphic Playlist” responds to “Rosa del ciel“ in LaFavola D’Orfeo, by Claudio Monteverdi, libretto by Allesandro Striggio.
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
I LIKE THIS
Wonderful lines, thoughts – memories evoked.
Love is blunder, drunken karaoke in a hotel bar.
Happiness in the first act does not lead to heaven.
I like these two lines especially the second – Happiness in the first act does not always lead to heaven. True words and likely inspiration for Fats to Lucinda aching for heaven.
Heaven, a concept to some, a destination for others but something we all consider. Is there…?
“Who knows how inspiration possesses us?” the poet asks. In this new age, will Alexa take the initiative to figure it out or continue to do only what she is told, I wonder? Thanks for sharing.
Oh, a ghazal, with Lucinda in the first stanza…straight up my alley. Thanks for this.