Too Many Sons Of Art

A river of sorrow floods my tongue
spilling grief into another goodbye,
too many sons of art are dying.

There are no more songs or second acts.
Silence slams against legacy and I search
through digital clouds seeking comfort.

Memories mix with tears as agony
follows the scent of decaying roses
to mounded dirt collecting headstones.

Death will come to each soul drawing breath,
but its timing is a bitter wind when it comes
to pens still full of ink and music notes left unsung.


 ©Susie Clevenger 2016

Comments

kaykuala said…
Sadly there are still unfinished business in many of them. Very poignant ending Susie!

Hank
Steve King said…
There is something so essentially young and immortal about the people who make the art that we love...so shocking and unexpected when they pass. The feeling reminds of Morrison, Hendrix, Joplin in my earlier years and all the greats who've joined them in the years since. You've penned just the right memorial to that feeling.
Steve K.
Gazal Bharadwaj said…
when it comes to pens too full of ink and music notes left unsung...

sad, real but great analogy.
reminder to live write sing now, despite the busy schedules, so the ink and the note doesn't die, even if we may.
brudberg said…
Oh I agree. The ink that never spills is so much sadder, than when a pen gone dry disappears.. wonderful writing Susie.
Jim said…
I too agree, Susie
It isn't even fair
Idols for us they were

But then think about it
It's our generation.
We are dying with them
..
The Real Cie said…
This, so much. There have been so many early this year. It's really shocking. It isn't so much that it makes me think of my own mortality, I'm quite aware of that and often rather relieved by it. I'm far from young and my soul is much older than my body.
The reason why I write about Malcolm Young so much, why he breaks my heart more than any of the others isn't only because he had such a profound impact on me from the time that I was 12 years old and very troubled. It's the fact that not only is his body sick and dying, but he has had to suffer so terribly in losing every single memory from his lifetime. His eyes went from looking very alert and aware if rather sad to looking resigned to a hopeless fate but not wanting to trouble others, to looking terrified and bewildered. He may not have been a perfect person, but he had a good heart and wanted to make others happy. He doesn't deserve such a wretched fate.
Also, having watched my father's cognition decline due to vascular dementia, having my aunt endure dementia, and having taken care of people with dementia for approximately 25 years, I feel on a personal level that I would find it to be the worst of bad fates.
In any case, we've lost a lot of good ones. Your poem speaks to that so very well. <3
Sherry Blue Sky said…
This is such a beautiful elegy, Susie........the "pens still full of ink and music notes left unsung........it is like the 70's and 80's are dying, with each new loss.....that golden time when music has never sounded sweeter, when we and the world were young.
Kerry O'Connor said…
There are no more songs or second acts...

This says it all for me. Such great acts will never be followed.
Toni said…
Love this. Perfect eulogy for so many.
Marian said…
So true. I've been pathetically mourning David Bowie myself. Though there is a glimmer of hope re songs written and recorded but not yet released, so perhaps we will get to hear those. I'm still all weepy about losing him.