Solemn tonics are oft’ lost at the palace halls:
as was a glass slipper at the prince’s dance balls.
King Odysseus’ return home to his kingdom;
and the lost city, Atlantis and its wisdom.
Pipe bagpipes pipe let the airways reverberate,
pipe bagpipes pipe; repipe, droning, droning, droning.

Alas, give heed, listen up! how faint yet how loud,
though fainter it’s louder, far timing yet most proud!
Now there’s no canters heard from the desert’s cradle.
It’s melody’s like the horn of Gondor’s fable.
Pipe let us hear thru the air once more your octave.
Pipe bagpipes pipe; repipe, droning, droning, droning.

An ancient heirloom carefully fashioned with lace
tipped with silver, covered in cow pelts, played with grace.
These leather bags fill no more, plays no hymn for them;
most reeds have grown as dry as a desert sand storm.
Pipe, bagpipes, pipe, set your brash notes reeding, reeding
so blowpipe repipe pipings, pipe droning, droning, droning.

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AITHOR NOTES:

Title: Pipe Bagpipes Pipe © 2021 Rickey L Bennett

WC: 158

SC: 12 / Line

This poem captures the author’s first memorial service he conducted (as the command chaplain for First Team Taskforce, 1st Battalion 7th Marines) for three Marines killed in combat: LCpl Wilt, 2Lt Winchester and Capt. Rowe. Then a recording was played of bagpipes playing Amazing Grace. That moment is eternally imprinted upon my psyche. Just prior to that moment the air was still but with the very first note a stiff gale unfurled the American flag as if it was saluting the fallen heroes of that day and carrying the bagpipes piping across the desert over the oceans to every land: we’re dying, dying dying. It seems like those setting upon thrones and living in palaces didn’t care though we were paying for freedom with blood, sweat and tears. As the bagpipes piped it seemed God cared and that there were many people who stood up and took notice but since the war has prolonged and the bodies have piled out of view then it’s as if are fallen are forgotten. This is conveyed thru the ebb and flow of the bagpipe components use or disuse. At first the bagpipes are full of air and blasting loud and clear sometimes on perceiving ears but often on deaf ears. Now even the bagpipers are worn out, thus the empty bag and lack of music to memorialize our nation’s fallen heroes.

Photo Curtesy of:

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Piob-Mhor-or... © Rickey L Bennett 2021:

Poetic Devices: assonance • metaphor • musical • onomatopoeia • refrain • rhyme • simile • syllabic