Musical Saw Poetry - Saw Lady®

O Tell Me the Truth About Love, by W. H. Auden

Some say love’s a little boy,
And some say it’s a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
Some say that’s absurd,
And when I asked the man next door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn’t do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It’s quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I’ve found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn’t even there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton’s bracing air.
I don’t know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn’t in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I’m picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

The Woman With The Musical Saw, by Roby Chavez

The beauty of the musical saw echoes in the tunnels
and tugs away at the souls of strangers
until they find themselves at the foot of this hypnotizing lure;
it is the moment that a passerbys lonely journey briefly ends.
I am told that the thicker the metal; the better the sound.
Its notes play louder than the sadness that dampens these tunnels
because it is carried by the acoustics of coincidence.
here there are no stages; so there are no barriers.
This woman who plays it, lost her legs of dance years ago;
leaving her crawling through life.
The sound of defeat was never so loud;
but in despair she finally heard the pitch of life.
It came to her one day from the singing saw.
It was in a pub in a distant land where the music finally played.
This time it was louder than the echo of life’s past tragedy,
but the old man who knew the secrets of the saw refused her lessons.
It was in this that her destiny was revealed.
She knew not a note and had no patience.
The saws she found were many and their notes out of tune;
but finally a singing saw that fit; & in a moment her search was over;
finally cutting through the doors shut so long ago.
It was the instrument of chance that she learned to play.
The vibrations of her saw ripple like a pebble in a pond,
and it sings with the voice of a guardian angel and
calms with the gentleness of God’s hand.
It is why I tell you,
Listen to the woman with the singing saw,
and your spirit will hear it’s music
even from the jagged edges of life on the longest day of winter.

©by Roby Chavez 1999

The Sawplayer, by Laurence Snydal

He wedges the wooden handle between
His knees, clamps it tight. With his finger, thumb,
He bends as ess into the steel blade. Dumb
Metal, this old saw, made for quick clear clean
Partings, tuneless puffings. He makes it keen
Enough to set all teeth on edge, to plumb
The little bones in the ear, the ones some
Call hammer, anvil. Tools too. All unseen
They see what he saws, shiver in saline
Silence that trembles to a shaking drum
And leads the brain to listen. We become
Enthralled, chained to the chanting of the lean
Bow, certain that soon he will make it mean
What we always knew it would, what our numb
Hearts need, what we know now was missing from
Our lives, music half horsehair, half machine.
So we wait to watch his bent fingers bring
Bow to bent blade as he teaches it to sing.

©by Laurence Snydal 1996

The Haunted Waters, by Bob Singleton

When the footpads quail and the nightbirds wail,
As a riderless horse bounds across the bay
You’re in Astoria Park, and the sky is dark
The Hell Gate Kid is on the way.
As bodies fly in the nighttime sky
And ghostly pirates hunt for gold
The “Hussar” hoves into Hallet’s Cove
With a spectral cargo in its hold
As “Slocum’s” sirens wail its flaming cargo from Hell
And the ghost’s high noon casts a deathly spell
The sawlady witch plays an uncanny tune
While a black dog howls at the moon.
When whirlpools churn, and the mist comes in
And electric eels fly in the nighttime sky
Spectral undead leave their bed
And search for bones left behind.
When you hear the quicksand moan and you feel alone
and you see a vampire with a xylophone
An eerie canoe paddles towards you
with dreamland spirits playing the didjeridoo
Do not run away,
its all just play
for its the Hell Gate Kid
on holiday!

©by Bob Singleton, Halloween 1999
* Hell Gate is the bridge at Astoria Park; Manhattan pirates crossed the river at night to plunder the homes of the slumbering Queensites; the Hussar is a revolutionary war ship which sank with 150 men on board including many American POWs; Hallet’s Cove is near the Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria; General Slocum was a pleasure cruiser which caught on fire and ran aground while carrying over 1000 women and children.

Saw Lady, by Willa France

I've Been Coined The 'Saw Lady', by Janina Catherine Jayme

I’ve been coined “THE SAW LADY” for I paint on saws and wood…
I will paint on anything……….I thought I never could………
My heart keeps tugging at my strings…no music do I hear……
Pulling me back to magic of saws….. where my music reappears……
At the tip of my brush……strings of my heart……”SAWS” music of my soul….
How flattered they call me “THE SAW LADY”…..who I will never know…….

©by Janina Catherine Jayme, 2001

The Musical Saw, by Ben Sweeney

The saw is a musical darling
It never complains of abuse
It may sing and saw wood the same hour
With never a squawk or excuse.
Now the oboe will whine like a baby
And the bassoon will growl like a bear
The fiddle will squeal for attention
And the trumpet will blatantly blare.The piano may play only black notes
The string bass will just thump its chest
The drumsticks will clash with the cymbals
And the organ will drown out the rest.But the saw? It just sits there all mellow
Plays sweet or plays blue – either way
And for kicks, it may stop playing music
Amd relax and saw wood for a day!

©by Ben Sweeney, Campbell, California

Sawing a Song, by Jerold S. Meyer

A Job Well Done, by Janina Catherine Jayme

Saws have a certain strength and come in all shapes and sizes…
During their lifetime they do their job to any task that arises….
They cut down trees, build furniture, work hard everyday…
Cut out children’s toys and ornaments in time for Christmas play… I can’t thank them with music when they are worn and tired…
I can’t play a saw like”saw lady” for my talents are not busker or hired…
So with artwork and display I give saws their just reward…
Hanging on a wall or sitting on someones’s mantle board…
Play your saw “saw lady” make music once again…
I’ll do my part with palette and brush till the music ends…
Then we can say we did our job in our own special way…
Awakening the beautiful sound of saws with a brand new day…

©by Janina Catherine Jayme, 2001

Enchantress, by Willa France

They meet first, on her mezzanine island,
those who approach descent for uptown trains
whose great jaws pluck clean the station decks
or down-bound, hustling to moneyed maelstroms
to throw themselves at what they see that glitters.
A slight woman a girl almost auburn hair
in silver studded black. She smiles, rapt
in her body-bow and silver-saw ballet,
making music against the noise, a realm
of sweet sound stilling the maddened rush.
Yet hurried City travelers are not tempted.
One mans enormous sneeze conquers all,
driving those before him. Another's ears stopped up
by i-pod minces by, cocks his head,
squawks, and flaps his arms to disappear.
Others, on the run, grasp for purse or pocket
without stopping, contribute sheepish faces.
And always those who offer alms of pitying
smiles for just another busker, merely.
Some passersby will slow. Even stop
though steps away. One hides behind a column.
A young couple stares, looks at each other
and bite their lips, bemused or disbelieving.
Tourists, suddenly charmed, jostle for a place
in a photograph of another City oddity.
Some days even a crowd might gather, regulars
to this station. A hunched woman holds herself,
swaying side to side. A wrinkled man taps
his cane in time, nannies and carriages.
Of the very few who bow to contribute
not one does not also try to steal
what they see in her mysterious smile.
And one or two she knows (or they her, at least
enough to interrupt), eager to chat
of music, travels, performances, themselves.
Or to ask if ever she has cut herself?
Or what secret grants such simple
implements their melody, or whether
Dear, you can play a real violin?
Each she allows her private, urgent muse.
And when she bends and twists and shivers
her silver steel saw like another arm
slides her bow at unmarked frets, pauses
at a phrase or rest to flourish arm and bow
up high, head upturned with parted lips,
all limbs at once in concert, refining
the surround of squeals and shrieks and mindless
tos and fros into a prophecy
of paradox in sound, she magnifies
her instrument against her brandishing.
And re-genders myth, becomes today's
Ulysses, outplaying Odyssey's
and Argot's siren song. In a subway
underground, smiling and playing, playing
her mantic music of nothing but itself.

©by Willa France, 2011

It's That Lady With Her Saw, by Ruth Corett

Saw Lady of the Subway, by 'Poet of the Sphere' Mark Hastings

On cold a February morning,
as the wind blew bitter cold
and the clouds in the sky were as white as snow
and appearing to be giving a sign to all of forewarning,
as I walked down the steps of a subway
my ears and my mind could not believe what they heard-
the music that played out and got louder as I drew nearer to the source
was entrancing, energising, beautiful- I was truly lost for words.

The subway tunnels were like a network,
branching in all directions left and right;
but the music guided me to its player,
as if each echo were a beacon of not only sound but of flashing light.

As I turned a corner, I immediately felt powerful sound-waves hit me
and reverberate through my body,
I was instantly stopped in my tracks
as I came face to face with the eclectic
and amazing musician who seemed genuinely happy to see me
and to be playing for me.

The incredible music I discovered was coming from a musical saw,
and it was being played by a woman who I will never forget
and I will always remember her name:
Natalia Puruz, the Saw Lady,
whose music was and is unlike anything else I have ever heard,
and the joy on her face told me that
she was doing what she loved and what she loves is playing.

I don't know what she was playing for me,
for all I know it could have been a completely new and original creation
that she was composing as she played;
it didn't matter,
what this incredibly-gifted woman was playing
as she sat looking up at me was magic in every way.

I don't know for how long I stood watching, listening, imagining;
but I suddenly became distracted
when I noticed that other passers-by were approaching.
As always, I remembered that I had somewhere to be.
Still entranced by the woman's music,
and wanting very much to repay her for blessing me with her gift,
I took out five dollars from my pocket-
all the money that I had in on me at the time-
and I put it into the gold bucket in front of her,
and I again saw her amazing smile as I watched her face lift.

Not long after leaving the subway,
I sat looking out of the window of a coffee shop at the rest of the world
that was now being bathed in bright sunshine,
as I reflected on the woman, her saw, and on her music.
I was still overcome by the experience of meeting the musician in the subway-
even though it had only been for a short amount of time,
it was unbelievably-meaningful and beautiful-
I can find no other word, there is simply no other way
that I can find to describe her, her music,
and the way that her music made me feel,
and continues to make me feel, without using the word epic!

I hope the subway continues to echo
the beautiful voice of the saw player forever.
I hope that even when she is not there
she is there in people's mind and heart who have heard her play.
I hope people will never stop being intrigued and ensorcelled by her.
I hope the entire world will one day be blessed
to hear the beautiful symphony of the saw lady of the subway.

A Poem for a Saw-Lady, by Eyal Bat

An Angel's Twang, by D. C.

I saw the Saw Lady, by GrinfilledCelt

The Saw is Just Silvercolour, by Kirari Kirari

the saw is just silvercolour and not colourfull
the feeling is so cold and cruel

but the sound is so warm and pureness from the cold saw

i could be allright my finger to getting bleed
if i got the possible to touch the saw which this beautiful saw lady named natalia plays beautiful sound with soul..

be pleasure and dropping what i feel about you in gratitude happily...

©by Kirari, Japan

Saw Lady, by Heidi Younger

Ode to a Musical Saw, by Dave Bonta

No longer walking
the straight & narrow,
no longer restricted to the harsh
amens of service,
now it's your turn to be held still

for the sawing of some
effete bow, generations removed
from any kinship with arrows.
But you're free!
And this song of yours

might otherwise
never have been heard.
You put your whole body
into it, still ascetic,
but now for the cause of art.

There's a sweet spot, the street
musicians say, & they find it
in you. Where the heart might be,
systole & diastole in perfect balance,
if you were more than cartilage.

The pure tone floats up
through two octaves of rejoicing
at your deliverance
from lumber.
Or is this grief?

ֲ© Dave Bonta

Subway Saw Lady - Haiku

You Are The Saw Lady, by Jeffrey Dayton

Sawing Voices, by Mark Hastings

From the second that I woke up in the morning
and I opened my eyes, and the curtains,
to let in the beautiful and spectacular light of the sun
on this day of inspiration and destiny,
I knew that this day,
the day that I had been waiting a long time to come to pass,
would be the day to give me a gift
that I had dreamt of, hoped for, and wished for, for years,
and as soon as I walked out of my hotel room
in New York City, and I walked down 6th Avenue,
and then down 57th street to the subway station
on the corner of 7th Avenue,
I could feel an energy all around me, enticing me,
calling to me, drawing me down the steps,
and through the subway tunnels
to the 34th street/Herald Square station,
where something amazing, where someone phenomenal,
beautiful, and unbelievable,
was already playing the music of her soul for all the world to hear,
for me, and who I knew, just as I could not wait to meet her,
she could not wait to meet me.

After I got my ticket at the ticket machine in the subway,
I went through the turnstile with the swipe of my ticket,
and then descended again deep into the New York City Subway
to the platform for the 'Q' train going South,
my heart was beating so hard in my chest with anticipation,
I was lost for words,
I had no idea what would be the next word I said,
I didn't know what the next thing would be to come out of my mouth;
but I could hear The Music in my ear, in my mind,
and in my heart, all the while-
and that was why to everyone who was staring back at me
in the train car when I stepped on board, and sat down,
all they would have seen and remembered of me
was the 'I love New York' t-shirt I was wearing,
my wide eyes, and my big smile.

As soon as the train came to a stop, the doors opened,
and I set foot on the platform, turned left,
and then I ascended the stairs to the mezzanine,
I felt my heart open like the petals of a flower,
I felt captured, carried, ensorcelled,
I felt more amazing than I have ever felt before;
and when I reached the mezzanine,
when I heard the most beautiful sound
I have ever heard in my entire life
as clear and as perfect as the sound of the ringing of some
cosmically-important, resounding,
and heart-racing, transcendental bell,
I looked right in front of me,
as if there was no one else in the subway,
or in the rest of the city,
and I saw 'The Saw Lady'-
the phenomenal and amazing, the wonderful, incredible,
majestic, unbelievable, my friend, Natalia Paruz,
and within seconds of me seeing her she saw me too
and greeted me with her shining, astonishing, and magnetic smile,
and with us making eye-contact with each other
for the first time ever, I just looked at her with a smile
on my face, so happy to be looking at her,
so lucky to be around her,
so overwhelmed, so energized, so caught-up,
and unable to look away from her,
completely and utterley in-awe.

When we spoke to each other,
and every time I heard Natalia say anything to me,
I felt like we were in our own little bubble of connection
and consciousness, and I felt like I was in the presence
of not only a fellow artist, but also a kindred poet,
who when she plays her saw so beautifully
she was not only creating and playing vibrating and stunning music
that from the amphitheatre of the subway
echoed and sent waves throughout the entire planet and beyond,
but also the most incredible, gorgeous, natural, perfect,
and timeless, poetry.

Natalia then played a song, but not just any song-
a song that I felt and sounded as if she was playing it for me,
and no one else, and that me being here to hear her play
this beautiful, haunting, and incredible, song was something epic,
meaningful, meant to be, extraordinarily captivating, and inspiring-
like an act of fate, a miracle of the Angels of heaven,
it felt like destiny,
and hearing Natalia play is the most amazing thing
I have ever seen, or heard, in my entire life,
and meeting Natalia, The Saw Lady,
so long after first hearing her, and contacting her,
and telling her how unbelievable her music is,
and how much I love her playing,
meant so much, and for the rest of my life that first time,
and all the times I will see her and hear her play in the future,
will forever mean the world to me.

I didn't want to walk away.
I didn't want to return to the outside world
and leave Natalia's aura, her constantly emanating
and immersing spirit that was who she was,
and what she lets flow and be conveyed through the air
in the sonic oscillations and in the divine motions,
reverberations, and vibrations-
like hearing the heart-beat of the universe...
and then my heart let out a silent cry of pure happiness, serenity;
and in that infinite moment I closed my eyes,
I said goodbye to Natalia,
but not with a sense or a pang of sadness-
with a knowledge and a feeling
that I would see Natalia again and again,
and because of that I walked away and I rejoiced-
because of her music, because of what her saw playing
and all the music that she is gifted to be able to endow
and present to the entire worldג€¦
music that is so beautiful and special;
hearing Natalia Paruz, my friend, "The Saw Lady",
is the most incredible experience ever,
and when you hear her, like I do,
you will never forget her amazing face,
her beautiful smile, her miraculous music,
her fantastic heart, and her sawing voice.

Roses are Red, by Bob Singleton

Wailin Crow, by Tracy Diane Miller

Wailin Crow as Fans will know
Musical strains for eyes to see
For SawLady is a talent
A wonder to bring you Glee.

Rapturous beauty
The melody to remember
For @sawlady musical styling
Welcomes your heart Its sweet surrender.

For in a dark hour
It is music that has the power
To quiet your fear
And permit your heart to shed A happy tear

In the subway Where frenzy often meet
@SawLady musical splendor is a melodious treat.

©Tracy Diane Miller

The Saw Lady and the Sound of Music, by Alex Cigale

The Saw Lady and
the Sound of Music
For Natalia Paruz
Alex Cigale

How a piece of steel
can sound so human
The wooden handle
goes between the legs
The serrated side
dangerously close

The bow runs along
over the steel edge
Ever so slowly
bending its body
The greater the bend
the higher the note
Who I am and why
I was put on this earth

Hand-blown Crystal bowls
mounted on a spindle
The turning edges
touched with wet fingers
Crystal changing shape
vibrates at volume
The sound fills the room
everywhere and nowhere
One of Benjamin
Franklin's inventions
Mesmer used it to
relax his patients
The reason we listen
with wonder and awe

Three to four to five
Pythagoras explained
Same ratio as the
harmonic spectrum
All science is combined in this moment

That music works through
sinus and cosinus
Fortissimos, tremolos, lamentosos

Teach me how to play
the bicycle pump

A Sense of Wonder, by Van Morrison

I walked in my greatcoat
Down through the days of the leaves.
No before after, yes after before
We were shining our light into the days of blooming wonder
In the eternal presence, in the presence of the flame.

Didn't I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn't I come to lift your fiery vision bright
Didn't I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

On and on and on and on we kept singing our song
Over Newtonards and Comber, Gransha and the
Ballystockart Road.
With Boffyflow and Spike
I said I could describe the leaves for Samuel and Felicity
Rich, red browney, half burnt orange and green.

Didn't I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn't I come to lift your fiery vision bright
Didn't I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

It's easy to describe the leaves in the Autumn
And it's oh so easy in the Spring
But down through January and February it's a very different thing.

On and on and on, through the winter of our discontent.
When the wind blows up the collar and the ears are frostbitten too
I said I could describe the leaves for Samuel and what it means to you and me
You may call my love Sophia, but I call my love Philosophy.

Didn't I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn't I come to lift your fiery vision
Didn't I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame.

Wee Alfie at the
Castle Picture House on the Castlereagh Road.

Whistling on the corner next door where
he kept Johnny Mack Brown's horse.
O Solo Mio by McGimsey
and the man who played the saw
outside the city hall.
Pastie suppers down at Davey's chipper
Gravy rings, barmbracks
Wagon wheels, snowballs.

ֲ© Van Morrison

Echo of the Tin, by Janina Catherine Jayme

I heard the bells on Sunday morning.......they weren't
on a hill.......they weren't in the steeple.......
Still I heard the ringing .....the bells were singing their
tune to me and anyone who would listen......They
werenot familiar to me......yet they were.....Where had
I heard the echo of the tin......when did it begin?......
The sound of the saw .......working........ah I know it well
The sound of the saw........playing.........I know it well
Where had I heard the echo of the tin???Pray tell.......
Metal magic......"sawlady's "magic destined to keep the
music playing......Harmony in a bow and blade.......
Ringing in the tin ......echo of the tin....when did it begin?......My
garden holds the secret......Winds passing
through kiss my garden bells with their breath.....
..the wind in my garden plays the tin within......re-
minding me of the echo of the tin.....the bells are ringing.........my
cowbell is singing with the wind........
©by Janina Catherine Jayme, 2001

Cowbell At Evening, by Harry Elmore Hurd

One cowbell, tinkling in a quiet pasture,
Is more symphonic than an orchestra:
My heart is shaken by the primal music
Of any cowbell underneath at star.

I am a boy again, in green New Hampshire,
Questing cattle at the end of day-
With staff in hand, I trudge the path of memory,
Walking barefoot down the thistly way
That winds through hardhack spires to spired spruces,
And far beyond the upper pasture bars.

Once, the cattle, moved by dumb perverseness,
Eluded me until the early stars
Wheeled above the silhouetted mountain
And night had put the younger world to bed.
My lusting shouting turned the cattle homeward
Behind the bell-cow swaying at their head.

My feet were blistered, but my heart was singing,
When we were greeted by the wary crew
Who were impervious to the brassy music
Which only a happy-hearted farm lad knew.

I shall always be grateful to the clanking
Of any cowbell underneath a star-
For me, its shower of intermittent music
Is more symphonic than an orchestra.

The Cowbell, by August W. Derleth

The cowbell's song is a tireless tune
for wind to carry over the meadow in June,
from dawn until the cattle stand and wait,
lowing at the pasture gate,
for someone to come and put aside the bars,
and after, let them out again, under the stars.

At night sometimes the clear bell spills
its melody among the darkend hills.

Patient and slow,
the cattle go,
day in, day out, among the flowers and the grass;
so all their summers and their autumns pass,
and always the tinkling cowbell's call
drifts from the meadow over the orchard wall.

The Hour of the Cows, by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Down from the rocky pastures
On the little paths
Between outcrop and outcrop
Move the cows,
Slowly, in single file,
Unhurried, cropping
The well-cropped grass.
The leader wears a bell.

Slowly unhurried, as the sun sinks low,
The cows come to the pasture bars and wait.
Slowly the cows move upward from the alders
Where they have browsed on grass that grows from mud.
The red-winged blackbirds fly up from the rushes,
the little snakes glide from the passing threat
Of those unhurrying hoofs. Pausing and browsing
the cows come to the pasture bars and wait.

Down the long lanes, half fenced with stone, half wire,
The cows walk slowly, black and white, or brown
Darkening to soot, or brown and white, the cattle
Flow down the rocky streambeds of the farm lanes
Like quiet water flowing to a pool.
their bells strike an occasionalripplw sound of music
And then are still, among the brooding cows.

Westward the sun moves, and westward, westward,
It shines upon the cattle moving slowly,
The world is full of cows forever pacing
Tranquilly in the light of a late sun,
Forever moving to a sound of cowbells
Drowsily waiting at a million barriers,
Placidly waiting for the night to come.

The Golden Dance, by Tamara L. Raetz

A solo ringer plans the golden dance
To liberate from brazen bells a song
With intricate glissades and fluid stance
And thus to weave the notes into a throng
Of close companions, joined without a seam,
So that the music falls like liquid sound,
As raindrops, merged, create a flowing stream,
Cascading through and over and around
An aural landscape; this, the ringer's stage
Whereon the company of notes perform
Ballet no longer captive on the page
But freed to enter souls and there to warm.
The soloist turns practice into art
And this because these bells ring from the heart.

Take Me Up To The Bell Loft, Tamara L. Raetz

Handbell People, by Tamara L. Raetz

When God made the singer
He must have been pleased
To hear His creation praise God with elation!
Then He made the ringer
Who suddenly sneezed,
So, quick to the rescue, the angels said, "Bless you!"
And God thought He would.

He gave them some goodwill
And plain common sense;
He blessed them with stories to tell of His glories!
Their humor and great skill
Would grace all events
Where bells were the reason they gathered in season...
And God called it good.
(...He wanted to show it,
This good work begun,
To all of His people, from tower to steeple,
So He made the poet
But then just for fun
He created a language with words like "rhythm" and "music" that don't
rhyme with anything, leading frustrated handbell poets to realize that
perfection is only achievable in Heaven...
And God understood. :-))

Enslaved, by Tamara L. Raetz

When I first put my hand upon a bell
I didn't know my life would change as well.
So innocent, they lay reflecting light,
Not one so much as hinting at the plight
Of hopeless addicts permanently bound,
Indentured to a lifetime filled with sound.L

How can these golden beauties be so fell?
And yet their fascinating habits tell
A tale of bell entrapment at first sight
(for ear and eye and hand a pure delight),
Of mental pleasures nowhere to be found
But deep within a score, in music drowned.

A wall divides what was from what can be
For each and every note is changing me.

The Cow-Bells, by Charles Frederic Robinson

Old Winter's joys are many; keen and bracing is his air,
Tracing forms of grace and beauty on the window-pane;
Yet when days begin to lengthen, and the twilight's shining fair,
I long to hear the tinkle of the cow-bells once again.
Jingle, jangle, throught the tangle
Of the bramble down the lane,
Shady trees and gentle breeeze,
Falling waters, breaking seas,-
How I long to hear the cow-bells once again!

Right merrily the sleigh-bells sound upon my ear to-night;
Up the river whirl the skaters, each bound first the goal to gain,
Each nerve with rapture tingles; -yet, for all the gay delight,
I long to hear the bell-cow browsing down the brook again.
Tinkle, tankle, round her ankle
Swirls the brooklet down the lane.
In the bush the hermit thrush
Sings his plaint so quaintly lush-
How I long to hear the cow-bells again!

When low the storm-cloud hovers, and the wind goes roaring past,
When patter on the window dashing, splashing, drops of rain,
Then hearth and light are cozy, but my heart cries out at last,
I long to wander where the cow-bells jangle once again!
Jangle, jingle, through the dingle
Sound the cow-bells up the lane.
Zephyrs blow and sweet springs flow,
O'er the sky the swallows go-
How I long to hear the cow-bells once again!

Henry David Thoreau

Thomas Hood

Robert Southey

J. E. Troyte

La Scie Musicale, by Jocelyne Fournier

L'ame d'une Femme pleure en la Scie,
Et sa Sensibilite plaintive,
Penetre en moi comme Lame Incisive,
Toute enveloppee de Douceur aussi...

Pleurant une immense et Tendre Tristesse,
Elle ressemble aux Larmes de la Pluie
Qui effleurent la Rose et la caressent
Quand les Cieux sont tristes a l'Infini.

Et dans cette Plainte Melodieuse,
Qui dechire les Coeurs comme s'abiment
Les Petales de rose douloureuse.
Je sens d'une Infinie douceur l'Abime...

Chant Profond, Pathetique et Emouvant
Qui me fait Contempler sous un Ciel sombre
La Rose en pleurs au Jardin languissant
Et l'Ame qui, dans le desespoir, sombre.