Songs I Sing

By B. Germain Reynolds

Songs I Sing is the raised curtain to a woman, wife, mother, and leader who writes poetry because she must. These one-hundred-plus songs—simple, sweet, sacred, serious, silly, and sensual—seek to upturn every stone in the readers’ heart, resonate in the readers’ mind, and coax a repartee that reflects the impact of the poet’s thoughts, her experiences, her aspirations, her principles. Set to the melody of self-reflection, the rhythm of purposeful living and the tempo of tolerance, Songs I Sing speaks first and foremost to the author, demanding of herself honesty and forthrightness and shunning the unexamined life. A humble exploration of rhyme and prose, reason and rhetoric, commentary and confession, this second book of poetry by B. Germain Reynolds catalogs her love relationship with words and coerces the listener to erupt in song—songs that anyone can sing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646546220

Book preview

Loss

The window is open,

My soul pours out

unto the street of indifference.

When will it end?

How did it start

with a hole the size of seduction?

Drop by drop

Pain by experience,

the blood of dreams seeped out.

The shell remains,

Flesh and bones

Waiting for the touch of hope.

Who Gets Me?

When it rains, and I get wet

When they tempt me, and I am beset

When they come for me, and I am weak

When I break out in sweat and patently reek

When the fire rages, and my hair gets singed

When my feet are tangled, and my pride is dinged

Who gets me?

When the floodwaters rise, and my boat sinks

When the power is out, and everything is on the blink

When my pencil breaks, and I do not have a pen

When the milk spoils, and I have less than ten

When my team loses, and my tea runs cold

When the music stops, and I refuse to be sold

Who gets me?

When I wake up early and still miss the bus

When I open my heart, and my passion is a plus

When I sit on a chair, and the legs break

When they turn up the heat, and I’ve had all I can take

When my covers are cold, on an unmade bed

When I lean out the window and fall on my head

Who gets me?

Sometimes Sing!

Sometimes sing!

Energy bring.

When your breath is taken by a sight or sound

And marvel overtakes you.

When truth sinks into your conscience

And sets itself to music in your soul.

When you get so tired, plain words will come out wrong

Relax, there is always a song.

From babies to children, so they learn how to listen.

Teenagers testing their voices on top ten tunes.

Adults and elders shouldering care.

Those who grow plants,

Raise chickens,

Teach.

Softly as a hum.

Lustily, as often as you eat.

Sweetly in the tempo of a believer.

Loudly, above the instruments in the band.

Reverently hearing the words as a lesson just for you.

Proudly joining the bats, birds, fish, frogs, insects, mice, and whales.

Sometimes sing!

Human thing.

Songs We Sing

A cacophonous din in my head rings

Clashing with my soft cries for at-one-ment

Quieting when the choir of voices sings

Their pitch and cadence richly heaven-sent

Who takes first prize, second place, lowly third?

What came before, after, next, or dead last?

Will only dire consequences be heard?

Or can choices claim a role in the cast.

Character rules in the lyrics I spit

Nature and nurture write the final score

The songs are raw, repetitive, and writ

From my heart to yours our shared folklore

Songs we sing when we are sorry and sad

Songs we sing while we are merry and glad.

What to Do?

When they come for you

Their voices snuffing yours out

Their actions rendering you impotent

Their wants diametrically opposing yours.

When desire disappears

And smiles elicit stares

And tears erase laughter

And touch terrifies.

When fiction fizzles

As truth sounds out a rhythm

At odds with your hopes

In step with your fears.

When energy lags

And peace is poetry

Incompatible to your prose

And blood is thinner than water.

When time rushes on

And leaves you unsteady

With gaps in your recall

Too wide to cover with notes.

When joy is a piece of cake

Or a cat’s meow

Or an old love song

Or a forgotten phrase.

When they leave you alone

To cover up the scars

To pick up the pieces

To shore up the walls.

Brick by brick

Piece by piece

With tattoos of triumph

Your billboards of acclaim.

To issue statements of conviction

To write lyrics to live by

To sport whiskers of witness

That winning is believing.

Taking names

Leaving crumbs

Holding fast

Pounding and pushing.

Borrowing from history

Rewriting the conclusion

Drawing family from fracture

Painting a new picture

Embracing tomorrow

Bringing a fresh tab of answers

As you constantly ponder

What to do?

Life Verbs

Write

When the pen is full

And the heart is open,

Read

Until dusk turns into dawn

And the words start to make sense,

Sing

With soulful pitch

And a thankful spirit,

Speak

After you have prayed

And God touches your tongue,

Run

Far away from trouble

And toward the light of peace,

Walk

With reverence upon the earth

And taller than every doubt,

Remember

How God led you yesterday

And that today is another gift,

Pray

Like you are talking to a friend

And heed the answer he sends,

Think

Fast, kind, long, hard

And then act like you give a care,

Wait

For the moment, the place, the person

And keep moving until you get there

Reach

Up to that which will make you grow

And back to those who still fear,

Give

Back to the community of your growth

And into your better self,

Stand

Firm on your cherished beliefs

Until knowledge reveals a better way,

Study

Deep into a subject

And yield to the convictions therein,