O, not these sounds! Strike more pleasing chords!
The singer yearns for pleasant melodies
to lift her voice above all other sounds.
From every side though come demands to
sing in other ways. Harsh discordant sounds
emerge along with entreaties to sing
what others have sung already for years.
Sometimes the cacophony appears to
silence her voice. Yet if it did, the stones
themselves would cry over the confusion.
Sing then, the song given to you. Listen
for the melody that matches your voice.
Keep singing in every direction,
let the wind carry the words far and wide
Until you hear the music in reply.
The Call I Should Have Made
No revolt of a body’s provinces,
as Auden’s elegy to Yeats described.
Rather a sudden onslaught on Labour
Day afternoon overpowered her. On
Facebook her sister’s laconic statement
stunned all. Only a few days ago I
made a mental note to call her again.
During the pandemic she reached out to
me after so long. Over the decades
we evolved into other people than
what either thought we would become: pleasant
surprise for both of us actually.
Sometimes surrendering the vision of
whom we expect someone to be frees us.
Gone a month shy of her three-score and ten;
I grieve and wonder whom I should call next.
An Iranian Woman Wishes for Better Days
Once I walked along boulevards, my hair
cascading gently over my shoulders,
feeling freer than in my native land.
Now sirens pierce the air while young people
vanish yet more take to the streets daily.
All I want is a soft wind to blow my
hair in every direction and the sun
to warm my face while I gaze upon you.
Lunch with Charlie Battery
Sometimes we were in that close-to-Canada
coolness, or in sweltering Southern heat,
rarely close to home at the other end
of those long low mountains, slashing the
Commonwealth at a 45-degree angle.
At noon I usually drove to Charlie,
let my driver chill, and instead of MREs
enjoy some brats for German Day or some
field-cooked goulash for Hungarian Day.
Then I swapped tales with the Feher brothers
about being second-generation
Magyars and our grandparents’ memories.
With luck we savoured the final morsels
before a fire mission was called and
frantic activity followed before
the M109 howitzers came alive,
Shattering the sky, sending steel down range
camouflaged dragons issuing gunpowder-scented smoke.
Arthur Turfa is a Lexington, SC-based poet/writer and is active in the South Carolina Writers Association. His poems have appeared in The Petigru Review, and The Lothlorien Poetry Journal; one was in the Top Ten for the 2019 Poetry Prize of The Pangolin Review, as well as in other publications. His most recent poetry collection is Saluda Reflections from Finishing Line Press, © 2018. The Botleys of Beaumont County on Blurb, © 2021, is his first novel. A Day in the Life of an Adjunct Instructor, a short story, appeared in the November 2022 edition of the Lit eZine, Volume 1. His first short story collection, Epiphanies, was released by Alien Buddha Press in March of 2024. More of his writing will appear soon in several publications.
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