Strains of Now By Joe Murray

Strains of Now
A Villanelle

The past is all our nows in effigy
Well suited for burning on a pyre
Our future bathed in bright expectancy.

Only ticket stubs from last night’s symphony
Remain, cello strains unable to inspire
Now, the past pretending it’s not an effigy.

Tonight’s Bach fugues sheer ingenuity. 
Though the harpsichord is yet to be acquired
Concert concerns seem buried in expectancy.

Diva’s Un bel dì languishes in memory
Intermission gab, pompous reviews that aspire
To immortality but only survive as now in effigy.

The coming flute quartet has no reality 
At three. The real is at the cleaner’s, attire
For players clothed for now in expectancy.

Today Lisa hums an Austrian ditty
charming us with melodies that transpire
Now, not in some past—ashes of an effigy—
Nor a future, whose raiment is but expectancy.

After plying the waters of ministry, industry, and higher education, he turned to poetry. He began under the tutelage of Marie Harris, former poet laureate of New Hampshire. Forthcoming, his first collection, “Closing Season: A Poet’s Latelife Reflections.” Topics range from the beauty of the planet and its survival to spirituality and a republic on the precipice. His work has appeared in “Best of Branches,” “Common Ground,” “Nebo,” “Sin Fronteras”; and anthologized in “Missing Persons: Reflections on Dementia.” In other literary forums he has been a book co-editor, editorialist, essayist, and book reviewer. His late-life passion, however, remains poetry writing.