Lyric Lounge

  • I think of word relaxing on settees

    casting their spell
    
on those gathered in the room
    
finding meaning in each greeting
    
seducing ears with funky tales

    Tell me now if you have heard this story
    
another hero, another age of glory
    
will you gather poems in your hands
    
and send them off the stage
    
dancing to their rhymes.

    I think of words rippling to the beat

    metaphors invited to come in off the street

    suppose we dress up letters
    
wrap them up in laughs and tears
    
and send them off to speak
    
about our loves and fears.

    Come sit with me while poets weave their magic
    
painting with each breath another colourful lyric
    
shaken stirred and swallowed

    this lounge becomes the hallowed

    we bow our heads to one final amen
    
our pockets full of truths we never spent

    I think of sentences on comfortable chairs
    
of moments in performance that make us gasp for air

    each day warming to the sound

    each night lighting, lingering, loud

    magnificently crowning speech in the lyric lounge.

    Jean Binta Breeze MBE
    For WORD! and The Lyric Lounge on the occasion of the 2008 Special Olympics