Succor With Rhythm and Sound

Raymond Niemi

She returns at five from
night work aglow with ferment,
weighs critiques online,
mulls sound and rhythm
of words for stanzas.

Tones from piano and her throat
vied with smoke to fill the club
to walls. Males eyed and smiled
despite table mates, wondered
of form under fabric.

She can't tell if verve,
looks, the muse
she feels is channeled
or withdrawl and reach
entice and tempt the most.

Their presence is better
than sleep, floats off
like gas filled globes
ones from the past
whose hard touch stuck.

---

Raymond Niemi writes: "I have lived in the Tampa Bay area for the last twenty years. Parts of the surroundings have found their way into a number of the poems. I wrote poetry in school and started again about a year ago. I spend most of my time writing, critiquing and editing what other's author and visiting sites and zines to see what's being written. I enjoy seeing the variety of style in the poems submitted to a monthly contest I judge at QuietPoly Writer's Magazine. In a half century, I've learned aging isn't so bad but faulty health and disability is."