This Poem was Submitted By: Gene Dixon On Date: 2008-08-13 12:45:13 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!

Click Here To add this poem to your "Voting Possibilities" list!


When The Women Came Out To Dance

Dark burkha hems brush dusty paths like new brooms. A balm of silence sooths anxious eyes. From the east comes a shrouded sunrise, to the west move shrinking shadows. Blood still glistens in the gutter. The soldiers are gone. No men are in sight. The Old Woman, with ageless bravado, sang first,  trilling the birdsong music of morning. And the women came out to dance. Like dervishes they spun, when the women came out to dance. Like they were the sultan's daughters, when the women came out to dance. In the cleansing rain, the children could laugh, all in the peace of the moment, when the women came out to dance.

Copyright © August 2008 Gene Dixon


This Poem was Critiqued By: marilyn terwilleger On Date: 2008-09-05 00:49:10
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Hi Gene....I read this poem last week but life duties kept me from doing a cirtique until now....and I should be in bed but for some reason I never feel tired! Sounds weird, huh? You have great imagery...shrouded sunrise and shrinking shadows... are my favorite...if I had to pick. I think this scene has probably played out in many Italian villiages but it took an excellent poet to write about it....well done.....M.


This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2008-08-18 08:58:02
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
A voice in the desert. The oasis draws what's left of life. Burkhas, miniskirts, hoops and wide berths . . . it don't matter. They're beautiful whatever. That's the point, right? Probably my take. The water in the oasis is true, clear, cold, refreshing . . . whatever the point. You've lots of credit left. Now borrow and be a good American. MSS
This Poem was Critiqued By: James C. Horak On Date: 2008-08-14 08:55:50
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
That you elect a very interesting irregularity to refrain, "when the women came out to dance" offers your poem highly more originality. On other levels this works well too. From your poem on the Tree of Life, the grasp of that duality in women that is marked by the multi-level way they find release (need I mention the sensual?)where men are more singular, reflects back on the reality of difference between the two sexes. The simile, "Like they were the sultan's daughters" might carry better were it, of the sultan's harem, where among that group were more interesting and diverse bonds formed, representing far better the complexity of interworkings between women culminating in such societal mechanisms as your, "dance". The immediate image evoked by your title, after all, is what women do when the men are away (reenforced by the last two lines of the second verse.) A gifted poem lends only subtle focus to mechanics, ready to abandon them entirely when they impede what is sought to be done. In doing so they find truer expression than mere convalution and contrivance. A song in itself. Such an achievement is acquired when you find, in the last and my most favorite verse, a ryhme that filters through the unconscious-becoming-conscious (somewhat like a leaf finds the ground) in the way "laugh" strikes subtle chord with "dance". The best of your three poems. JCH
Poetry Contests Online at The Poetic Link

Click HERE to return to ThePoeticLink.com Database Page!