Anti-Heroin Chic
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

​

6/3/2020

Songsters of the Troubled Heart by Ian C. Smith

Picture
                 Alexander Rabb CC



Songsters of the Troubled Heart

Driving in rain, radio soft, Karen Dalton’s throaty voice, a wind finding cracks, a drug’s effect, a siren,
invokes me.  To what?  Bygone chances missed in that ossuary of broken dreams, past wrongs?  I
have flexed my scornful wit on music’s cryptic lyrics, but then, what about Wulf & Eadwacer?  Now
this song illuminating the shadows, that creaking fiddle evoking crossing old iron bridges slowly,
sultry light flickering, starting with the plaintive drawn-out opening:
Yesterday, cherished youth
vanished.  Begirded by heartache I want to rush back, save Karen from dead-set trouble, keep her off
the streets, above ground, fend off danger as she pours out her wounded life.


Now the sweet redolent intro of Moby’s Mistake, then grief as the pensive beat explores my heart’s
lacunae, leaves me depleted.   Another song about regret.  I could have died a dozen deaths, but
survived.  Wrenched apart by songs?  C’mon.  I heard the mournful cries of trams at night’s edge,
remember smouldering words igniting.  This beat hammers my superannuated memory, a song not
from my time yet relevant, playing wintry scenes I can smell again in my mind.  The sky god batters
me, wipers losing it.  I would drive beyond this bleary gloom, re-enter remnants of the ghostly tattered
past, a voice repeating my name, stanch this wretched helplessness. 
Don’t let me make the
​same mistake again
.


      A troubadour’s lute
      heard beyond the castle wall
      pricks hearts rich and small.    

​
​
Picture
Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in, Amsterdam Quarterly, Antipodes, cordite, Poetry New Zealand, Poetry Salzburg Review, Southerly, & Two-Thirds North.  His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide).  He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island, Tasmania.


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.