If These Walls Could Talk Poem by Dorothy (Alves) Holmes

If These Walls Could Talk they probably wouldn't.
They would sing instead, since talking for them,
Has no melody, you see...

These walls, serenade the shadows, dancing on every side,
Like a fast midnight ride...
There are upside down, silhouettes of every song
I've heard, I've sang or have written-bitten
with heartache and loneliness;
These songs have passed the test in my endurance...

These sad songs, I play over and over between my jazz piano
And they hang from the ceiling like slow time's candled
chandeliers.

These walls don't tell their secrets…it would
Serve no purpose; they have no rhyme.
These walls have held my life's trinkets with rare eminence,
Photographs, clocks, paintings, handbags, wedding dresses
prom dresses, tuxedos, all silent, as the music
that expresses the muse inside my heart
when awake or asleep.

Yes, if these walls would talk they'd ask
whose business is it any way.
They would whisper 'caution' into a window breeze.
They would Sing my favorite lyrics,
Just as I wrote and sung them.

'Quiet Please!

Let this dream be
all of him
that belongs to me
held in silence within these four walls.

Dorothy Alves Holmes
A Poet Who Loves To Sing