"cadenza" poems
Parenting
organizing the day,
while the baby room adjacent
makes dreaming rock n' roll noises
siren calls to lay in bed,
semi-alert, on guard duty,
scheming about dis n' dat,
you are sleeping, dreaming,
wide awake seeing,
multitasking eyes closed simultaneously.
lesser of a poet, more a notate-er,
list keeper, note taker,
arguing with yourself inside the head,
actually feeling the thoughts
coursing, lurking, seeing both sides now,
parentally, washing the dishes
of the hours and years ahead.
while the woman-mother
makes her soprano dreaming noises,
you laugh at the orchestra of
******* sighing somnolent noises,
a cadenza of love dancing in your
irresistible wide awake dreams.
paying the bills, lying in the dark,
you wonder-worry about the agenda
unknown that will overgrow you,
fast creeping up the grain of your skin,
ivy on stone skin walls.
lala lala
you borrow baby's lullaby,
yourself calming,
keeping time, silly rhyming,
organizing the days ahead
in you head, while,
recording the harmonies of sensory inputs.
the dark provides the cloak
where you alone
feel and hear the worry and laugh lines knitting
into a single stitch of parenting.
1/20/2013
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
~for the one who will know it was written for her~
muddy verb and adjective,
muddling and muddled
have you ever seen a pas de deux/deluxe,
one dancer, proscriptive,
and her partner, prescriptive?
the stage, of course,
exactly the width of your head,
from ear to shining ear
this couple o’muses dance en concert,
though their very natures are anti-logarithmic,
the value of their exponential activity is a
descriptive nomenclature
I am overly abstruse this Saturday morn,
mushing mathematics and ballet, verbal word games
as is my wont wanted,
everyone sleeping while I rise at 6am,
doing ablutions, seeking absolution,
pulling weeds from our respective gardens,
answering old friends I have yet to meet,
to whom I answer,
“still here, though long time no see,”
which is of course hysterical funny, inherently contradictory,
as the brain grasps well my
Red and Dead Sea brain cells, a splitting motif
muddling and muddled,
proscribed from getting on transport,
to deliver to you the proper healing prescriptive,
as if I had in my possess to diagnosis and correctly assess
even though one of my many passport names,
a requirement, to visit,
this inter-netting ether, that both combines and separates,
permits me safe passage,
over the historical lineage of borderlines of land and sea,
to deliver this message,
to you
woman
*I am here, waiting patiently, though long time
no see
like ever,
absentia, dementia,
both self-censure:
here, then, my cadenza,
dedicated solely soulfully for you,
as the sabbath sun rises over the East River,
saying, laughing unto me,
“still here, though long time no see,”
for though I cannot look upon her,
my sun, my sun, my son,
yet she, as well,
is everywhere-inside of me,
warmly illuminating
my muddled mind*
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 7:57 AM UTC
reposting a poem from 3 1/2 years ago, when I knew how to write
<>
organizing the day,
while the baby room renter in the adjacent,,
makes dreamy rock n' roll noises,
siren calls to stay~lay in bed,
tho status of semi-alert,
ready to relieve Ernie and Bert,
who have the first shift covered
soon on guard duty,
scheming about dis n' dat,
you are sleeping, dreaming,
wide awake seeing,
multitasking with eyes closed simultaneously.
lesser of a poet, more a notate-er,
list keeper, note taker,
arguing with yourself inside the head,
actually feeling the thoughts
coursing, lurking, seeing both sides now,
parentally, washing the dishes
of the hours and years ahead.
while the woman-mother
makes her soprano dreaming noises,
you laugh at the orchestra of
******* sighing somnolent noises,
a cadenza of love dancing in your
irresistible wide awake dreams.
paying the bills, lying in the dark,
you wonder-worry about the agenda
unknown that will overgrow you,
fast creeping up the grain of your skin,
ivy on stone skin walls.
lala lala
you borrow baby's lullaby,
yourself for to calming,
keeping time, silly rhyming,
organizing the days ahead
in you head, while,
recording the harmonies of
sweet sensory inputs.
the dark provides the cloak
where you alone
feel and hear the worry
and laugh lines knitting
into a single stitch of parenting.
1/20/2013
Aug 30, 2016
Aug 30, 2016 at 4:39 PM UTC
Here we shared the slips and reels of earnest conversation,
An interweaving counterpoint of dialogue
Wherein I bled the truth of loving.
Heart’s secrets shed
And shared.
And by and by transposing the antiphonal chant
You guide towards consonance, harmony,
With gentle lilting phrasing
Encouraging sweet concord within the cantus firmus.
And yet you say you do not sing?
Surely our hearts beat out the song of love and life
And all our narratives are ballades sung in open form?
I have heard you sing your madrigals
With melodies of hope and peace and grace
And tried to catch the tune.
Here, have rich harmonies been played out
And love songs whispered on the air.
So, if God grants, a final cadenza let there be
In a lullaby that’s sung for me.
Mar 4, 2010
Mar 4, 2010 at 12:25 AM UTC
THE KNEES
of this proud woman
are bone.
The elbows
of this proud woman
are bone.
The summer-white stars
and the winter-white stars
never stop circling
around this proud woman.
The bones
of this proud woman
answer the vibrations
of the stars.
In summer
the stars speak deep thoughts
In the winter
the stars repeat summer speeches.
The knees
of this proud woman
know these thoughts
and know these speeches
of the summer and winter stars.
1.6k
Verily the exordium told anent a beauty engirdled in her fedora
soliciting those whoever descried her into her mere servile admirer
eight trenchant tinctures upon her body invigorate like a cadenza
I dare not to contradict the verity that I am beguiled afore her
whilst the snain distilled faintly enwreathed her in unctuous silk
concordantly she devote herself earnestly to the impeccable rain
that emanate her fragile poetry with prestidigitation in a whisk
forsooth she is but the vernacular sobriquet to the soul of the rain
recall me otherwhile during the rainstorm champagne did coerce
and the sunset's glass of wine exude her ingratiating persona
like a myriad of aphrodisiac summarized in a single verse
when harmony and lyrics danced in the crepuscular crescendo
all of that needed to be enunciated is it is you
do not harshly let me be thy unrequited dilettante
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 4:27 AM UTC
Not quite enough light
as I rounded the corner;
distinguishing, at first,
a glint of kindness, then it's absence.
If I had danced a bit longer on the edge of your sardonic stage
I would've stumbled on a steady beat of naiveté,
always one note behind your calculating symphony.
The shallow beams from the timeworn ghostlight
cast elucidation on your conductorial robes;
it is not often that one sees
so well in the dimness of love's sweet fog.
Alas, the savage cadenza reverberates
as if a prophetic whisper, illuminated my secret fortitude.
I turned back, fierce with indignation.
Aug 19, 2011
Aug 19, 2011 at 3:06 PM UTC
You spirit me away to Greater Eden, /
In the redolent throes of /
Ethereal /
Romance. /
Reverie is magnified in your absence /
As I wonder upon /
Your /
Towering arms. /
Your heart is an impearled grand piano, /
Singing to me symphonically. /
Each key, weaving a tapestry /
Of the sonorities in amour. /
Beauty is your cadenza, /
As your radiant moonbeams /
Whisk me away to /
Twilight En Amour. /
May you be mine, /
Until the stars evanesce /
From The Charred Canvas of /
The Night Sky. /
I am yours, /
From sea to shining sea /
Uttering one-thousand words in solemn prayer /
That our union may ne’er deliquesce. /
May these words imbue you /
With the ardor of ages /
That we might procure in the heat of romance, /
The silver wings to soar heavensward. /
You are my forevermore, /
You are my swansong, /
You are my euphony, /
You are my musicality. /
You are my poetry, /
You are my eternity, /
You are my whimsicality, /
You are my Ivory Knight. /
(—Se’ lah)
Feb 13, 2025
Feb 13, 2025 at 8:11 PM UTC
It's not just notes.
It's the pain in the low notes
And happiness in the high
It's the way people take their pain and sadness and sorrows and push them all out through the notes of a song
It's the anger in the sharps
It's the finally cadenza
It's not just notes
It's how you express them and make them you
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014 at 9:39 PM UTC
I am here, waiting patiently for her,
though long time no see
like in ever, like in never,
my absentia, dementia,
both critiques of self-censure,
here, then, my cadenza,
dedicated solely soulfully for you:
as the sabbath sun rises over the East River,
saying, mocking, laughing upon me,
“still here, though long time no see,”
for though I cannot never look upon her as well,
my sun, my sun,
yet she, too is everywhere-inside of me,
woman-sun, both warmly illuminating my muddled mind
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 8:04 AM UTC
Sing my song of forgetting,
Of lips never wrong, never upsetting,
Sing the wine-infused air along,
From the violin’s grapevine song,
Purely gifted as the altar wine and alms
Of the Santa Maria della Visitazione,
A cadenza from the catgut of stringed waves,
The vibrato in polyphonic staves across the lagoon,
Amid the psaltery sway of submerged algae plumes,
Like the strident tails of the horses of Neptune,
Or the teardrop-surge of the glass chandeliers of Murano,
The same powdered hue of Venetian sky,
As bluebirds fallen into their own drowned tune,
As absence awash over the sun-scattered tombs of Olympus.
Sing with a felt-tipped tongue,
So my song of forgetting is never undone.
May 31, 2024
May 31, 2024 at 9:57 PM UTC
There is an inch of sleight in this house – this cold chair,
a burst of cologne clogging a 20 minute stride. The stringent
air tonight blusters deeper than gashing sheens.
The little dryad of dew outside and the cadenza of frogs
after lambaste of rain. Whenever you sing, your voice
communes an immense pain, something unconscious of its
gravity, something that levitates back to momentary ululations
swelling in the grime of times and heady chances. A long stretch
of a day submerged in silence resembling a howl underwater.
There will be many sorrows and they will take form of doves,
assume the skin of the populace. They will come in a volume of
names pressing the linoleumed musk the way the body turns
maneuvering over the saltine, the mattress, juxtaposed to a lover,
a brusque aroma of coffee brushing away the calm demeanor
of the morning, dragging along the weight of its lassitude
towards the sprays of fern opening a dense ornate of forget,
you, in all places that pulse without recall – an obtuse
fish feeling its life in a surge of blue, overtime, finally knowing
what it means to sing and drone only words.
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 10:20 AM UTC
The cadenza of life is its \
magistry. \
What is life? \
What is love? \
What is liberty \
without embrace \
& without freedom \
Emancipation \
is our sacral birthright. \
Mankind & womankind \
must not live life captive \
to their desires & yearnings\
This path \
would be onerous \
& burdensome to the spirit & soul that —pines for liberty. \
However, we must cleave to the light for the light is aeonic, is mystic, is sempiternal, is eternal, is kingly. \
—The Cosmo-Plexus of Empyreal Love is calling. \
(—Se’ lah)\
Feb 23, 2025
Feb 23, 2025 at 11:36 PM UTC
June is dead-still
trees converse with other
language mocking the trilling
of birds. North of here
there is a visitation. Virgins
are being transferred
all Monday housed in foreign
homes. Oregano
perennial, ingrained on
roof beam the rise and fall of,
a languid mirage outside
much less than an inveterate superstition.
Past the bridge where I once laughed
as a child when my father
surged past ploughed fields.
this almost overtakeless summer
minting its blazing core
and now rivers cut this town.
The derelict nectar of youth,
how lovely it was the first time
to pierce through age, an arcade
rising from the carrion that was
our birthright under the throbbing heat.
Who touched what
to turn room into bedlam – slowly, these
evincing hours paint me the
grandiloquent picture of all
when the moon a foolish assumption
under a rain-soaked grassland
moist enough for crickets, venue for
frog hidden somewhere, outlined by a cadenza,
us, humming along in our
cast-off night clothes, meagerly this
climate tumescent in this town.
May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 at 1:32 AM UTC
Curl my spine into candy cane curves
And crush my hands into ******* Jack shapes
Crack the crib of my ribs,
Crunching me– I cannot leave you!
Could you come closer
To this candid cadenza,
This carousel that carries a cavity in its creases?
Candy me, you confectionary killer!
Make me a caramelized, crème brûlée corpse!
Jan 24, 2016
Jan 24, 2016 at 12:52 AM UTC
Canary in a coal mine
Never
learned to speak
Never
learned to fly
Gilded plumage tarnished by the soot of your surroundings
Don’t breathe they said, less dust settle in the trachea
Cadenza cut by choking
Treble tinged with poisoned honey
Don’t fly, they pleaded, lest you plummet into the abyss
Don’t play rough, lest the coals deface each fractal
Crystalline
Commodity
Taxidermy tucked away under plexiglass
Away from light
Away from green
Wings clipped for buyer’s viewing
So you
learned to croak
A battle cry
Learned to crawl
You drank the moonlight with saucer eyes
Learned to dream
Dust to ashes ashes to dust
Mottled feathers bloom into red and gold
Phoenix rising
Canary in a coal mine learned to be infinity
Jun 16, 2020
Jun 16, 2020 at 1:30 AM UTC
Quando la giovinezza si fa buia
prima che sopravvenga a dominare
la luce dell'ascolto,
ogni parte di me si fa tensione
e le mani scrittura misurata.
S'apre la vaga ellissi del volume,
sopra cui la cadenza si fa scure
che trapassa nel vivo la materia.
Ed io incido col soffio del respiro
mentre la morte s'alza in me supina
per un connubio acceso di sospetti.
478
Before your absence from my life I did not know what it was to be weak.
Everlasting secrets and whispers became the motifs of our cadenza.
Exchanges in conversation became riddles that filled me with torment.
Just imagining any fragment of the you I knew keeps me in your maze.
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 9:29 PM UTC
time
just a location in space
that keeps you in line
puts you in place
take some off
it takes your place
ticks you off
shapes your face
makes you late
consumes your days
makes you nervous
makes you wait
takes you out
takes itself
offers wealth
exchanges health
for similies
and nurse's smiles
and promises
to stay a while
May 6, 2024
May 6, 2024 at 6:50 AM UTC
Branch after branch after branch commingle in harmony,
the percussive scraping, snapping, creaking, and cracking is soothing.
An organic wooden rhythm emerges as the wind plays its song;
leaves rustle and shimmer a final cadenza before taking flight.
When did the first branches touch? No one can say now.
Where one begins and one ends is not only impossible to see, but now unimportant.
Geometric intricacies that could never be imagined alone, now exist.
There is unselfish sharing of sky-space and infinite room to grow forever.
Squirrels in transit have no awareness of the two entities entwined together.
Birds flutter in and out, from twig to twig, their melodies mingle:
And she looks up to see pure joy.
Dec 21, 2017
Dec 21, 2017 at 11:13 PM UTC
The tendrils of chords
climb wearily
Sparkling molecular envisions
Cadenza , with dedicated backing
Thousands strong star struck
vibrato reverberating
encompassing compassion
the chills and tears flow
as another star explodes
in the tyranny of
vacuous silence
May 30, 2021
May 30, 2021 at 3:34 AM UTC
I
In her eyes, he could see
the boisterous nature of life
the visions of future, and the scope of silence in between.
II
All I'm doing is, living off my resources: inside a storm, maybe.
Still death cannot be simplified and its contours lie within me, despite the scales before me.
III
A boisterous seeker, peripheral and pragmatic in conclusions, beginnings without answers: the stone that sought fire and wore it off in air.
IV
Maybe you know this,
Our *** is not intuitive not impulsive neither terse, not the least deniable: a cadenza to the violent soul of nature, our language and its mistakes impromptu every second.
V
Look! the landscape- its frozen miniatures configured within: dwellers on its ***** and creases, cheering the new sun, its sheer magnitude -the sum of their lives now, this moment.
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 3:02 PM UTC