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

http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/the-girl-with-the-whiskey-voice/

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