Tuesday, June 05, 2018

The Girl with the Whiskey Voice

The old pine for youth but youth may not offer everything expected of it. Read my latest poem published in Spark magazine.

The Girl with the Whiskey Voice

They called her
The girl with the whiskey voice
Like ether held together, with water
Perched on a delicate stool
She sat on the stage alone
Tuning her guitar to her soul
She was all of twenty-three
Youth coursing through her veins
Through unclogged arteries and nimble joints
And yet her soul was a fragile parchment
The scars of her past were
Stories preserved with ink and vinegar
They sauntered in every night
Filling in that little joint
With smoke and their emotions
Each moth bringing their baggage
As a homage to that iridescent flame
− Lust, love, admiration, sorrow
They fed off her youth
Off the fullness of her body
Off the absence of any blemish
Off that freedom from responsibility
Off the freedom to dream
Off the freedom to just be
But youth is sometimes
Just a promise of an oasis
A mirage to those removed from it
The girl with the whiskey voice
Was a soul aged with torment
And wisdom of a life lived precociously
The night began and she sang of love
And youth returned to those who heard
While she travelled to an older time