“Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.” -Paul Simon

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides!” -Arthur Schnabel

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” -Aldous Huxley

“Music is a friend of labor for it lightens the task by refreshing the nerves and spirit of the worker.” -William Green

“Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” -Martin Luther

“Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words.” -Robert G. Ingersoll

Hello and welcome to another exciting round of our most awaited segment “On Popular Demand.” Music is something which binds us together. It causes two people to share an emotion so strong that it can hardly be put into words. Call it fate or stroke of serendipity for once again we are in total sync with the Music Prompt over at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. Tonight, I want you guys to pick a favourite song of your own choice and to go wild. You can also opt to write about the different aspects of music. For further inspiration please refer to the three wonderful poems below:

Music at the Villa Marina

By Robert Louis Stevenson

FOR some abiding central source of power,
Strong-smitten steady chords, ye seem to flow
And, flowing, carry virtue. Far below,
The vain tumultuous passions of the hour
Fleet fast and disappear; and as the sun
Shines on the wake of tempests, there is cast
O’er all the shattered ruins of my past
A strong contentment as of battles won.

And yet I cry in anguish, as I hear
The long drawn pageant of your passage roll
Magnificently forth into the night.
To yon fair land ye come from, to yon sphere
Of strength and love where now ye shape your flight,
O even wings of music, bear my soul!

Ye have the power, if but ye had the will,
Strong-smitten steady chords in sequence grand,
To bear me forth into that tranquil land
Where good is no more ravelled up with ill;
Where she and I, remote upon some hill
Or by some quiet river’s windless strand,
May live, and love, and wander hand in hand,
And follow nature simply, and be still.

From this grim world, where, sadly, prisoned, we
Sit bound with others’ heart-strings as with chains,
And, if one moves, all suffer, – to that Goal,
If such a land, if such a sphere, there be,
Thither, from life and all life’s joys and pains,
O even wings of music, bear my soul!

Music

By Amy Lowell

The neighbour sits in his window and plays the flute.
From my bed I can hear him,
And the round notes flutter and tap about the room,
And hit against each other,
Blurring to unexpected chords.
It is very beautiful,
With the little flute-notes all about me,
In the darkness.

In the daytime,
The neighbour eats bread and onions with one hand
And copies music with the other.
He is fat and has a bald head,
So I do not look at him,
But run quickly past his window.
There is always the sky to look at,
Or the water in the well!

But when night comes and he plays his flute,
I think of him as a young man,
With gold seals hanging from his watch,
And a blue coat with silver buttons.
As I lie in my bed
The flute-notes push against my ears and lips,
And I go to sleep, dreaming.

Music swims back to Me

by Anne Sexton

Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?

So pick up a pen and lets begin! As always the prompt will remain open the entire week so that everyone can write according to their own pace and time. Please click on the blue widget below. When it opens be sure to click on “add your link.” Now skip the blanks and proceed directly to “try here” written at the end in small font. It will direct you on how to link your poem. Please visit other Poets and do comment on their poems. Have fun ❤️