ghost melancholy
“can you grieve / a soul you don’t know? do I have the right?”
I sit in subdued mourning, grieving for a stranger
who isn’t a stranger. can you grieve
a soul you don’t know? do I have the right?
I search for a descriptor for this
ghost melancholy and find only this:
your smile, playing on grainy footage
in the depths of memory; your voice,
muted as if I’ve only heard it underwater;
your face, a memory I can’t trust.
I sit in hollow mourning, grieving for a stranger
who isn’t a stranger. is the absence of grief
a sin? do I have the right to tearless eyes?
there is no name for this emotionless sorrow.
it sits heavy on my heart like a pearl,
forged from guilt and wanting to forget.
I long to release it, have it plucked
from my body and turned into something beautiful.
can you take it from me,
as you go?
About the Creator
Katherine J. Zumpano
poet & writer in the pnw | bookworm
writing a little of everything
find me on instagram & threads: @kjzwrites
'from me, to you' out now.
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our other lives
1 I never cared for the color of my own eyes before I saw his. coffee-with-cream brown. they drip honey in the sun. I swear they hold secret constellations I have yet to unlock. is this why they call it the honeymoon stage? I remember the first time I met his mother, how she asked for my sun sign and stared into me, read my intentions. she declared us soulmates; I laughed, but wanted it to be true.
By Katherine J. Zumpano2 years ago in Poets
'20/20'
"Do It Again" the track that would ultimately open the Beach Boys final album on Capitol Records which was released on February 10th 1969 had originally been released as a single in August of 1968. The track was the first of many post-Pet Sounds era throwbacks to the early Beach Boys sound which would become continually more cliched and eventually lead the Beach Boys to the level of self-parody they would eventually succumb to in the 1980s while their closest contemporaries The Beatles nearing the end of their run in 1969 would go on to be viewed as the most influential band of all time. However, the song itself is not bad on its surface, and it opens with a futuristic sounding (for 1969) drumbeat captured by then-Beach Boys engineer Stephen Desper using tape delays on the drums performed by Dennis Wilson and John Guerin. The song has been re-recorded numerous times over the years on various Beach Boys-related projects most notably the 2011 re-recording at Capitol studios featuring the five surviving Beach Boys at the time backed instrumentally by various members of both the Brian Wilson Band and Mike Loves touring "Beach Boys" to promote the then upcoming Beach Boys 50th Anniversary reunion tour in 2012. The hammering and power drill sound at the end of the song was an excerpt from a track called "Workshop" that was to be a part of the uncompleted "SMiLE" album.
By Sean Callaghan6 days ago in Beat
Comments (2)
So known to you but not known, in that they are someone who has been in your life but you never really felt like you knew them. And now they are gone to leave you with your guilt. I love your last seven lines. That idea of the pearl hiding your guilt and being taken by them from you would be a gift indeed.
I tend to grieve for strangers on the regular. Great job! 👏