Sarma
Walls of periwinkle blue with white ceramics in
floral, pastoral, and almost neatly smudged
designs, hanging beneath lights that softly
sigh out radiance to the bursting crowd within
Youth and age are intermingled evenly in
groups of two or five or ten strong, some shirts
shout with parrots on black print and then some
whisper and wink with the understated
elegance of clean white silk
Iced glass that tastes of honey clasped in
hand, you tilt your head in idle witness to some joyous
misadventure at the bar, and I see
the smile flicker that you try to hide
I touch a mix of spices to my tongue and know that it has lived a
thousand years or more before my lungs had craved that
first sweet gasp of air, I close my eyes because
I can’t decide which
beauty to live
in first
Posted Sep 2, 2019, 8:22 PM UTC · edited
Wow the imagery that you create throughout this is fantastic. I especially love the phrases "some shirts shout with parrots on black print and then some whisper and wink with the understated elegance of clean white silk".
The only thing I would change would be "Youth and age are intermingled unimportantly". I think unimportantly could be substituted with a word with fewer syllables in it and would help the flow of that sentence.
Overall this was a great poem with a magnificent ending!
Thank you very much! I appreciate the feedback. I wasn't sure about that line, it felt like it had a good beat to it in my head but then I did worry about it being clunky.