The last dance #poetry #poem

If a dream was a dance and that
dance was a waltz
I’d be whisked off my feet to the
beat of your pulse:

I would whirl and I’d twirl as we’d
own the dance floor
and my skirt all a-swirl would in-
vite, ‘Just one more…

‘Have this last dance, this last dance, this
last dance with me!’
At the end of which dance you’d bow
down on one knee

as you held out your ring and en-
treated me please
‘Just say yes, only yes, put my
fraught heart at ease!’

And I’d look in the book, in the
book of your eyes
and I’d answer, I’d answer…now,
there’s the surprise! 

Written for dVerse

Tonight, Björn is hosting ‘Meeting the Bar‘ and has asked us for a waltz in poetry form, stating specifically:

‘what counts today is the beat. You can use (again) anapests, a variation. Maybe you can listen to a wiener waltz, and imagine dancing around a ballroom… counting one two three.

Let the dance be your poem.’

I have employed anapests to convey the ‘one-two-three’ rhythm of waltz time. Each stanza starts with an ‘up-beat’ (the first two words) after which the waltz time begins. I’ve split the lines to emphasise the ‘one-two-three’ pattern.

Featured image: ‘The Viennese Waltz,’ by Vladimir Peruvinsky, 1957.

And here’s one of my favourite waltzes:

78 thoughts on “The last dance #poetry #poem

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      1. I haven’t had much time for writing lately. As you yourself have noted, we can’t do everything. I hope to get back to dVerse at least once a week soon though.

    1. The way you decided to break works wonderfully to add rhythmic dance quality to this work.

  1. You captured this prompt wonderfully! I love your rhythm and the beat of your soul!… and then you leave us hanging at the end!
    Dwight

  2. A lovely, romantic waltz of a poem, Ingrid!

    Coincidentally with your video, I’m wearing an old t-shirt with the Pennsylvania Ballet Logo on it. I won it when our kids were little and I won a contest for tickets (box seats!) for the four of us to go see the Nutcracker at the Academy of Music–a beautiful old theater in Philadelphia.

    1. Yes, I’ve just read yours and if you read the two together you get the ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ effect!

  3. Wow! You knocked this completely out of the park Ingrid! So lovely and lyrical, and the strategically placed repetition really made it float and spin. Wow! Beautiful! I went silly with mine, oh well…

  4. Great use of anapests, Ingrid, and I like the way you split the lines to emphasise the beat! It brought back learning to do the waltz with my nan. I love the lines ‘’’d be whisked off my feet / to the beat of your pulse’. A romantic waltz – it would make a great song. You should Send it to Andre Rieu.

  5. Ha ha. Love it. I am Elizabeth or Emma or Catherine or Anne – any of the Austen heroines – as I read your poem. The romance. The ballroom. The link of eyes. I love it all.

      1. Ha ha ha. Ah well, what is writing for if it’s not to dream a little. I’m a terrible dancer too so thank goodness we don’t live in an age where that was one of the skills women were measured by!

      2. Oh my goodness! That and sewing? I would have been left ‘on the shelf’ for sure 😂😂😂

  6. “I’d be whisked off my feet to the
    beat of your pulse:”

    loved the sound and rhythm of this waltz, very well done

    1. It’s interesting because with music, rhythm is what let me down. In poetry, you don’t have to do the whole ‘rub your tummy and pat your head’ thing 😅

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