Miz Quickly’s Prelude

The old Cuckmere Haven Coastguard Station c. 1920 cc:00

A Prelude

There’s music
in the sea air, it’s
in the damp plaster walls
and the grey shining windows.

Music’s in
the stained mattress
and the rusty taps that once
spilled with water. It leaves its
mark behind photos on the wall.

Music falls in tiers,
peals off the shingle beach,
floats on the sea in this place
where music begins.

Miz Quickly’s “Prelude” supplied a music prompt, Debussy PrĆ©lude Ć  l’aprĆØs-midi d’un faune – Leonard Bernstein. Shared with @Experimentsinfc #APoemADay on Twitter Ā  Ā©Misky 2021

27 responses to “Miz Quickly’s Prelude”

  1. The picture and your words feels haunting

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’ve always thought that this Prelude is haunting. I played it as a kid for a piano recital many decades ago.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. And you can play the piano. You are quite intimidating, young lady.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. 🤣 … piano and the tuba and the base drum, none of which, unlike a guitar, are easy accompaniment around a campfire after a long hike. My mother was very musical.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Somehow, I can’t imagine the tuba. Marching band?

            Like

            1. No, high school music. We had to learn one new instrument each quarter.

              Liked by 1 person

  2. There is music in everything Misky, and especially this poem!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. So true, and thank you, Hobbo.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Also appreciate Debussy. Great minds.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Did you follow the link to Miz Quickly’s prompt? A very interesting write-up about the music and the poem that inspired it.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. No I didn’t see a link – I read most posts in a reader which sometimes doesn’t pull everything through. I’ll take another look.

        Like

  4. This might be one of my favorite thing’s you’ve written! The melding of music to the elements!

    Like

  5. This is a wonderful response to the prompt. Love the last stanza, in particular.

    Like

  6. This brought back memories for me!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lovely. I’m glad.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Misk, this is such a winning combo,

    Like

    1. Thanks! 😁

      Like

  8. Perfect prelude of imagery, and then into the music. I can hear that rusty tap dripping. Adding this one to my chap book where I store lots of favorite posts. šŸ™‚

    Like

    1. I am delighted you liked it, K.

      Like

  9. Ah… so that’s what a small beach is… a shingle beach. There are several shingle beaches on the Mississippi in Wisconsin.

    Like

    1. No, shingle is what you’d call small pebbles. Small as in the size of your little fingernail (assuming that your nails are short). The beaches along the Sussex coastline aren’t sand; they’re shingle. When the waves hit shingle, it makes an enormous amount of noise.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Ah… thanks for the clarification šŸ™‚

        Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Blog at WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this: