Lara Dolphin

​ Healing Through Music 
 
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon when Barbra who happened to be sitting next to an Art Nouveau bronze in the light of a Tiffany lamp recalled a passage from Vinteuil’s sonata for piano and violin (or violin and piano) that had so enamored Swann when a particularly sticky little phrase not unlike the one employed again in the septet crept into her brain. Whereas the tune had begun like novelty ice cream, punched up with nuts and candies purely to frolic through a modest overrun, it was upon the palette of her mind that the melody unfurled into a lush romantic ballad reminiscent of decadently rich gelato al caffè. Over and over the motif spun golden spirals of mesmerizing self-similarity, through recapitulation and reprise, the crystalline bars advancing and retreating only to be snatched back before escalating in a sustained crescendo of tremendous ecstasy filled with soaring high soprano voices backed by full orchestra. Nearly transported away on a swell of sound, she clutched for the dogs, clones of her favorite curly-haired Coton de Tulear, and instantly felt her blood pressure drop, her heart rate settle from fervor in favour of the calm that comes from knowing that love never truly leaves and that music can capture memories and redeem them.
 
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This poem was first published at Vita & The Woolf.

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Whoever It Was 
 
after “Whoever She Was” by Carol Ann Duffy

They see me only as a mythical creature on city art.  Not alive. My jaws, still new, chew threw the cap. I smell the wax mingling with lemony pheromones. Bee, say the giant voices of the keepers of the round helmets. Bee. A grist of insects, suck nectar or pollinating crops for food. The buzz of tiny wings repeatedly. I do not mind. Perhaps someday. If you’re very lucky. The cycle repeats. The comb is crushed and strained of honey. When you think of me, I’m an orchestral interlude played on violin. Bustle of music. Listeners’ delight. What do you want to be when you grow up? A bit of zizz hangs on the petals. My scientific name sounds wrong. This was the garden. There are the coneflowers. Packing sweetness into hexagonal cells. For when they come. Whoever it was, forever their veiled eyes watch it as it journeys from snapdragons to primrose. It cannot be my kind and still I have a jar of light amber honey to prove that it was here.
 
You remember the precious things. Sunny days or finding your way home. One bee doesn’t matter. You fix your dead apian eyes on the drone which is spraying insecticide on your field. 
 
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Romantic Fallacy
 
It cannot come to good the breaking of a heart no matter what short gains may follow a psychologist kept in Van Cleef and Arpels a stylist paid to cut in bangs before regret takes hold the gym membership the fast food carryout poker stakes and cigarettes aftermath of ruin but would that these spoils bi-products of the debaculous affair make some useful purpose of pain and sorrow as if increase in commerce could replace devoted love carelessly shattered by what sweary wisdom is destruction fed that can ever be a blessing when so much that we do not see has been lost and cannot be recovered
 
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A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
 
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Whereby the Legacy Robe Recipient Can’t Even

What can you say of a life spent performing Newsies and Mormons and most recently an Employee of the World Wide Wicket Corporation? What equity abides in learning every line, every move of every lead part staying in the background never stepping into the spotlight? When you said goodbye to your hometown and headed for the city, you didn’t care what people thought. Enrolled in dance classes by day, you waited tables at night hoping to be ready when the big break came. For what began as amusement became ritual honouring the chorus and blessing the show. So opening night you twirl in the gown circling the stage counterclockwise as every hand reaches out to touch history and pride.
 
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A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
 
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Not, Not Pennsylvania’s Laureate 
 
Poor Sam Hazo, fellow Domer, sitting at your desk trying to convince Wendell Berry to come to Pittsburgh– did Naomi Shihab Nye and Gregory Peck give you such trouble? Tom Ridge never said you were no longer top bard no other poet challenged you for the title although Peter Oresick does have a mean left hook. So what if your words are not state-sanctioned promoted through official channels to citizens of the Commonwealth possessing nothing but the authority of your own convictions. Show us a world of enlightenment and self-actualization. Take back the mantle; transcendence is in your reach. You need no permission to advise the culture on meaning no ceremony or pronouncement to speak truth the imposters are those who will not be taught when knowledge presents itself who dare not comment or explain lest they be found wanting. 
 
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A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

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SCOTUS Van Backs Over Mary Richards’ Tam
 
If you’re a woman of a certain age maybe you shouldn’t be standing in the middle of a busy intersection tossing your hat in the air. Maybe you should be home raising kids or knitting. Maybe you’re at a crossroads in life and aren’t so much celebrating as serving things up to the fates. Gravity has its way, of course, and the cap lands on the frozen ground. Also, why was the van going in reverse when it should have been going forward and who was driving that thing anyway? Ohhhhh, Justice Aliiiito! It was almost as if he were aiming. There is nothing to do but muster your dignity. No one is going to commission a bronze statue of you picking your belongings off the pavement so you best get on with it and head to the office wet hat dripping limply from your hand. There is work to be done, and, Girl, this time you’re all alone.
 
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A version of this poem was first published at Shot Glass Journal.
 
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When There Are No Cracks 
 
How can you describe the burstiness of a sunset? Biting a juicy orange might help. And how do you capture the colours of the ocean? Perhaps Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral may be of use. Everywhere is colour–your socks, this button, the neighbour’s roof– except the stuff that’s clear like sea jellies or windows or things that are white like clouds or glaciers or teeth. Wavelengths, short and long, travel and land bouncing back to the eye where rods and cones send signals to the brain. But it’s not all pigments and dyes some colour is shape, intense and brilliant like marble berries or butterfly wings. And if color can be structure its properties remain  even in darkness where there is not the smallest space to let in the light.
 
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A version of this poem was first published at Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
 
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American Politics Enters the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum 
 
If you are in the mood to learn something, you might learn that the dumb bastards on one side of the aisle and the dumb bastards on the other side of the aisle will never get on and not even experts at the Belfer Center can tell you why. You might think it would be nice to live in a country where proponents of gun control and the Second Amendment or supporters of legalized abortion and the right to life are equally right, but it makes for a very dangerous place indeed. And though you Veblen me and I social justice you, what is gained is more than what is lost. So in this indifferent age, take care of your fellow Americans while the politicians take care of themselves and know that in a meaningless universe full of hollow victories, there is room enough here for us all.
 
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A version of this poem was first published at litcat and The Transnational Magazine.
 
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A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife, and mother of four. Her chapbooks include In Search Of The Wondrous Whole  (Alien Buddha Press), Chronicle Of Lost Moments (Dancing Girl Press), and At Last a Valley  (Blue Jade Press).