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Herencia Latina (Villanelle) by Ranger A red light shows what I cannot control
Tapping rhythmic breaths, my voice and yours attune
Strong lines beneath my sliding touch, your soul
Your heritage upon my fingertips as they cajole
Soft murmurings, exotic dusk falls soon
A red light shows what I cannot control
Tanned stomach rising, whispering parole
Trembling on my hips with white scars hewn
Strong lines beneath my sliding touch, your soul
Slender neck so toned - a tense viole
In the burning shadow of that blazing lune-
A red light shows what I cannot control
Silence shatters, blooming from a dark-staved scroll
Curving cries encircle this typhoon
Strong lines beneath my sliding touch, your soul
With the beauty of this Latin song extolled
I recall a smiling girl one spanish June
As red light shows what I cannot control
Strong lines beneath my sliding touch, your soul
Up the ladder:
The painted Chair
Down the ladder:
As It Is
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 7.7272725
Posted: June 1, 2006 6:26 AM PDT; Last modified: June 1, 2006 6:26 AM PDTWeighted score: 6.3636365 Overall Rank: 820 The following users have marked this poem on their favorites list:
Comments:
i think maybe this is about a girl you met once that may have been a bit too much your junior (hence the parole whispering). the red light i took to be the setting sun, and the lune (a cresent shape) is made from the curve of the horizon against the arc of the sun. what you cannot control is the passing of the day (marked by the setting sun) and maybe you had to say goodbye at that point...
i am guessing that her heritage upon your fingertips may represent some heavy petting going on... or maybe you two were just dancing a sultry flamenco (or other latin dance): "strong lines beneath my sliding touch" we also know that there is some singing going on (latin again), not only by S6L1, but also from the reference to silence broken by staves and the curving cries - ululations - that i would relate specifically to flamenco. now, this is lovely. very colorful, and a hint of bittersweet current beneath the memory of a remarkable experience. the mystery to me is the mention of "white scars hewn"...
aha!
looked up "parole" to see any other meanings, and LO! : "[Linguistics]. The act of speaking; a particular utterance or word." so her stomach rises as she takes a breath to sing, and that makes sense. now looking back, were you playing the guitar for her maybe? that would be her heritage (latin music) beneath your fingertips, as they cajole soft murmurings from the instrument. yes that must be it.... your sliding touch on the "slender (guitar) neck so toned", the white scars are the fretmarks, the body of the guitar trembling on your hips (seated player, typical for flamenco). so you accompanied her song on guitar on the last day of a vacation.... and you didnt want it to end. who would? also, perhaps a Hemingway allusion with the setting sun in Spain? "The Sun Also Rises"? i know, i know, i am reaching with that one....
Dude
You have just made me the happiest poet in all Christendom! That is so close to being the perfect reading of this; it was written about my guitar (stomach of the guitar rising as I breathe, and it was the guitar singing just as much as the girl) but quite honestly I couldn't have asked for a closer interpretation. I'm afraid the Hemingway reference wasn't something I was aware of: I generally play in the evening (as should most music!) as the sun's setting and my lamp has a red shade, which just seems appropriate somehow. You're spot on with flamenco (although I suck at it, I'm learning though), and white scars are indeed frets and the nylon strings. "Latin heritage" = "Herencia Latina", I do believe; 'tis also the name of a flamenco piece. There's one more thing hidden in there as well, I wonder if anyone will pick up on it... You got the important stuff though, and for that I thank you!
the last hidden part, it must be in S5, right? maybe you were playing at the eve of a stormy night? i cannot find anything else in there....
otherwise, it must be the girl remembered, smiling in spain in June... glad i got it somewhat right. this is a great work.
Stanza 4 - a spot of francophony to give a subtle reminder how thin the line is between musical beauty and ugliness...does that give any clues?
the it is the reference to "viole", then? i looked it up and it referenced Chaucer, with a definition of a "vial":
n. A vial. [Obs.] --Chaucer. This puzzled me before, so I guess that is the last bit. perhaps you had been drinking as you played, the vial empty, and therefore the music was great in your buzzed state? at the end of Friday of a harrowing week, I am afraid my brain is now mush... besides, i don't even pretend to speak/read/understand French. did i get the part about the blazing lune correct in my first post?
Lune - more or less spot on.
Viole is the right word, but it's not a dictionary.com reference, sadly. I'll wait and see what other people make of it before attempting the explanation. Hope you have a relaxed weekend!
Great work as usual.
Ranger, this is wonderful. A riddle poem, I must say. If it wasn't for Imp's insight I was getting quite distracted by Dovina's ideas, wondering what in the world could you be so precisely explaining. Am not familiar with viole, is it to do with a shade of violet? Am clueless.
Thanks for your comment, Amanda - it's always nice to hear from you and especially when poemranker's being as quiet as it is right now. The poem's meant to be distracting - partly to reflect the nature of the music, and also so that when people tell me they think it's about sex I can look indignant and accuse them of having a one-track mind ;-)
Viole is, on the surface meaning from 'viol', being the root of violin, viola, violoncello - the guitar's tuning (the 'toned' neck) being equivalent to what you'd get if you tuned any of those instruments up on 3 of the 4 strings. Technically it should be 'viol' I think, but in the latinate context of the piece I thought I could get away with it. I'll leave the explanation of the french part for now - maybe someone will piece that bit together.
Is the red light your McGuffin? Honestly, it could be a million thing but I can't think of the one it should be.
Viole is a reference to violence - assault, violation. If I had to bet, I'd say that viole, in conjuction with the slender neck, provides an additional, darker association of how easy it would be to snap.
- Niph, amateur psychopath ;-)
You're back! Awesome, it's been so quiet here recently...a lot of people are still just logging in, posting and logging out again. I trust the workload isn't too much? Best of luck for everything you have left in your schedule.
Viole - I thought you might get it ;-D It's also hinting at how little the musician needs to stray before turning a beautiful piece into a mess. And believe me, it's easy to screw up these tunes... P.S. - amateur? :-p
and here i went thinking that it maybe was a reference to a viole fabric (copy-paste the whole link):
http://images.google.com/images?;rls=en& and maybe something similar to this one: http://www.bobbydene.com/w32.jpg was a part of a costume she (the dancer) may have been wearing. so there still is the "mystery of the frenchness"... or no?
Viole..I read as violin and violence, and Fire...I wonder which you meant.
"Silence shatters, blooming from a dark-staved scroll Curving cries encircle this typhoon"...hmmm... I like the delving this asks of the reader...love all the layers. And..with all the rhyming, it would have been easy for this to have gone to crap...but you rhymed all over the place without it getting away from you...the rythm and placement of rhymes worked very well. Good job!
Potential, potential ... but not quite there.
This is beautiful and it flows well, matching the theme to the structure as you did keeps it from sounding repetitive.
Without knowing it at first I could feel a guitar in my hands... the strings along my fingertips and a current of song. 406 view(s)
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Have you been in school or some whorehouse in Mexico? Sorry, had to ask after reading the Latin soulish tone of this. Are red lights still used to show she's open for business? That was my first impression, but you've left a Heisenberg uncertainty that could kill a cat. Maybe you mean "June" not "lune."
"Your heritage upon my fingertips" good line.
Lune was entirely intentional but I'll wait to see what other people think before giving the game away with this one. Glad you like it, I could do with having a bit of poetic fun now.