Ode to the Cello

Fingered strings upon the cello
Vibrate by the moving bow.
Autumn tones in red and yellow
Echo from the to and fro
Through the eight-shaped box’s hollow,
Out the narrow, curving holes.
Oaken humming sounds must follow
Movements of the bow that rolls.

Violins sing high with tension,
Flutes all tweet like chirping birds,
Horn sounds bubble in suspension,
Clarinets speak notes like words,
Yet my ears prefer the cello
Over winds and higher strings.
None can sound as rich and mellow
As the notes the cello sings!

“Ode to the Cello” was first published by The Society of Classical Poets.

Story Time

The father, he sits on the couch with a book,
A child in each arm, and one more on his knees;
The mother, the same. All the other ones look
Content on the floor; he recites like a breeze.

He changes his voice for each character’s lines,
Whether child or lion or grandma or elf,
And changes his face as an actor designs
When quotation marks signal to be a new self.

As he acts, all the listeners picture the scenes
While the words are transporting them all many places.
The images show on their own mental screens:
The farmhouse, the castle, the characters’ faces.

These books are their movies, their history tome,
Their lessons in civics, religion, and right,
And bonding together with family at home.
Light fades while they’re listening, night after night.

After ten thousand nights touring narrative trails,
The decades have vanished, the children are grown,
And all look back fondly on a thousand great tales;
They continue the story-time nights with their own.

“Story Time” first appeared in New English Review.

Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland.  His poetry has been published in The Society of Classical Poets, Snakeskin, The Lyric, Sparks of Calliope, Westward Quarterly, New English Review, Atop the Cliffs, Our Day’s Encounter, The Creativity Webzine, Asses of Parnassus, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, All Your Poems, Verse Virtual, The Asahi Haikuist Network, LEAF Journal, and the anthology Whose Spirits Touch, and his short fiction has been published in New English Review, The Creativity Webzine, and Nanoism.