"consonance" poems
When you say insomnia,
people think you’ve had too much caffeine.
That it’s something you’ve eaten that day.
That maybe you’re just a little stressed.
Those people do not have insomnia.
Insomnia rolls off the tongue.
It is a noun.
It is four vowels and five consonance.
It is staring at your ceiling at
four o’clock in the morning praying
to God that maybe you’ll sleep tonight.
Insomnia is knowing ahead of time
that you aren’t going to sleep tonight.
It is drinking four cups of coffee at 1:30
in the morning because your eyelids
are so heavy they feel like anvils
are holding them down.
It is seeing shapes and figures in the dark
that aren’t there.
Insomnia is dying a little inside
every time you see the sunrise.
It is watching the moon reach it’s pinnacle
and sink beneath the earth.
Insomnia is your mind working at the speed of light
and taking sixty years.
Insomnia is running a triathlon without training.
It is wondering how long your body
can take the stress before folding in on itself.
It is wondering what the hell is wrong with you
that you can’t function like a normal person.
Insomnia is taking pills that almost make
your waking nightmares look like children’s play
compared to your sleeping nightmares.
Insomnia is having waking nightmares.
It isn’t the inability to focus.
It isn’t easily fixed.
It isn’t something you deal with.
It isn’t caffeine or something you ate.
Insomnia isn’t just a noun.
It’s a disease.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 2:35 AM UTC
Have questions
and question
everything you see,
hear,
should believe.
It is a way
to find answers
to Your needs
and the consonance in Yourself
You ultimately seek.
Jun 3, 2015
Jun 3, 2015 at 5:05 AM UTC
there's a lone seal swimming by the sea
hunting for silvers with heartless glee
a fish shy there, another one wiggling there
who really cares
for his table always set for one
darkness his day in the sun
still he takes to the rolling tides
lone, but ******* in his pride
one day his eyes pique a double look
as a mermaid pops out of his storybook
stunning as a little light filters in
as she swooshes by, waving her fins
she's a sparkled beauty from head to toe
her consonance and shine, lighting his mojo
growing hunger and his drive keep following her
on the ocean floor she shimmers
between the rocks she dances
one step she be in harmony to his glances
he drives a barked out calling
so raw and appalling
shivers crawling down her back
as he arf, arf's another attack
alarmed with his lack of renaissance
like she should be, she didn't offer a response
as she keeps shimmering past the rocks
racing, racing away from any further talk
broken, he retreats to his mind
the missing piece he'll never find
there's a lone mermaid swimming by the sea
and a lone seal barking of what could be
Logan Robertson
11/13/2017
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 7:13 PM UTC
There’s just… all this noise… There’s all this noise and I feel like a tone floating around in some kinda modal stasis. And I just want to change the key but I can never seem to get the voice leading right.
There’s all these other intervals in here with me and we’re all packed in too tight. I’m just a chromatic scale descending into dissonance as I push past clusters of minor seconds.
I feel like I’ve gotta fight to find consonance, but I’m so **** quiet that nobody can harmonize with me. Nobody can even hear me over all this noise all this noise all this noise. This noise when so many sing without listening. This noise of a thousand unheard melodies.
This noise this noise this noise
This noise this noise this noise
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
take sips sip sips
tumble down the flowers
bundled in white towels at
my rose hips
from raised graves
velvet hearse
sandstone paves
push away stones along way
soothe
change patterns
surprise
break the consonance
act-like defiance
it's harder than we thought
hurry
get back to the tower
don't choke on the pink powder
before I get there
complex lush
doesn't need any soldiers
off horse, of course
only I reside in these gardens
part my own lawns to my great gates
a dosed beast waits
and I must return
Aug 18, 2020
Aug 18, 2020 at 2:14 AM UTC
I can still feel your touch
Your kisses
You......
You play my body to
A perfect consonance
Harmoniously plucking chord sequences out along my shape
Sweet music singing through my conscious as you take me on this mystical journey
Exploring my form with practiced artistry
Softly strumming my senses into an allegro of exaltation
A hedonistic fusion of bass notes felt deep inside, pulsing, stroking, pushing me towards a sublime cadence
Quietly holding me in adagio while
A delicate symphony plays within my skin
(C) Pixievic
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 11:39 AM UTC
You’re a wolf -
A connotation.
You’re a breed
of imitation.
You’re a guise
among the sheep.
Snagging lambs
while they’re asleep.
Your smile sings
with consonance -
but your howls vibrate
with dissonance.
You’re a liar
with eyes of fire -
The termination
of my desire.
You sparked a change
in my perception.
You were the Alpha
of pure deception.
May 25, 2023
May 25, 2023 at 1:13 PM UTC
I am a musician.
I do not write.
I compose.
I can tell you the tempo of my heart
And how it shifts from adagio to allegro
When I see your face.
How the crescendo of your smile
Creates a symphony in my mind.
How the lilts of your voice are melodies
I will never forget.
I am a musician.
I am not a poet.
I cannot compare thee to a summer's day
But what I can do is compare you to a piece of complete harmony
And consonance.
I can tell you the names of the chords you strike through my veins
When you look me in the eyes.
I cannot turn words into poetry or love
But I can sing you love songs until my voice runs dry.
I am a musician.
I cannot write.
I can strum you like a guitar and make you hum.
I can make you sing sweet melodies when I run my fingers down your spine.
I can tell you how cacophonous my life is without you.
I can tell you how the melody in a monophonic composition feels
When you're gone.
I can feel the syncopation when we are in a fight.
I am a musician.
I am not a poet.
I cannot put into words how I feel about you.
But I can sure as hell try
In this word sonata of thoughts.
Mar 3, 2014
Mar 3, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
Daybreak brushes pink clad
hovering skies
beyond back lit mountains of Cascadia
Sunrise peaks through
the dawning nimbus
a variegated rosy
glowing consonance
The passing marine endowed sky,
framed by pinecone adorned
old growth timber stand,
near and far
***Red sky some mornings,
awakens heart on sleeve
without warning***
a lone mourning dove calls out --
unanswered
drowning out the drone
a lonely heart's throb
Harbingers of seasons change
cast nebulous shadows
over mountain
greenery meadows
imminent reminders
-- *ready or not --
what’s come and gone
a moment passed*
Though hearts may shine brightly
carefree summer's lazy days,
prevailing currents portend
the ever-present
winds of change
Someday heaven's healing rain
is going to fall softly
on this restless solitude;
cleansing a weary soul,
renewed once again,
mostly whole
© H. Rivers ... today
all rights reserved
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016 at 4:47 PM UTC
A decade from now,
My words will only be a carcass even birds won’t want
To pick at anymore.
I won’t be able to keep track of where my similes skip off to,
And maybe I’ll discover later that they crossed the street like a chicken
That wouldn’t know to look both ways,
Causing a six car pileup,
But never making it to the other side of the road as I intended them to.
Maybe my metaphors will age quickly,
And ten years down the road
Their doggy jowls will quiver with one last yawning breath
As they collapse beneath the nearest tree from hip failure
Resting at last beneath a pleasant summer sun.
I don’t like to think about it,
But I’ve entertained the idea
That perhaps I will neglect my words,
Letting all the quatrains pass me by.
Yes, that is how my structured sentences will meet their end:
With no periods
But a blank space
Where your name should be.
I’d like to think that someday
I won’t have this horrible need to write anymore
I’ll describe my perfect days because I want to,
Not to fill this void I made
When I handed out my consonance like candy
And scattered similes in the air like skittles
During that drought we had a while ago
When everything was black and white
And I thought everybody wanted
A taste of the colors I’m made of.
I like to entertain the thought that someday
Someday
People are going to reach back through the decades and excavate my words
And try to find deep meanings beneath all my poetry.
Scholars will slit the throats of my similes,
Claiming there was some philosophical point pumping through the jugular,
And I might laugh somberly [a little] if they do.
They’re going to find the rotted carcasses in the most random of places:
A passenger seat,
The floor by a bathroom,
A stairwell,
Under a tree.
I know that some might try to find the cause of death.
In fact,
I know they will.
But I’d much rather people look for the only reason of birth,
The only meaning behind all my metaphors,
I want these people to catch the quatrains I let pass me by when it hurt too much.
When it hurt too much
To just write-
I love you.
Jan 1, 2013
Jan 1, 2013 at 4:51 AM UTC
Somewhere at the watercourse-
Silvery brume.
Shining through, like pulsing light-
Golden iris are in bloom.
Tongues of brazen flame-
Snap their reflection against the lukewarm mirror-
This is where order looms.
Felicity-
Serenity-
Vestigial depression.
Second guesses-
Underwhelming quests in wrong directions.
Oh elixir. Oh watercourse-
Oh inanimate eloquence.
How you tempt me with your evocative consonance.
You remind me of a woman-
Her husband and her son-
To me you are a drifter-
You remind me of the sun-
You remind me of a king-
of a man with sore eyes-
Mourning late son.
In the mornings sun rise.
Watercourse watercourse-
Lazy eyed shadow.
Left handed perfectionist-
Seething pale shallow.
Watercourse watercourse-
Your body feeds the worms.
Your souls seams have torn.
Watercourse watercourse.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 8:20 PM UTC
Struck a chord in your beliefs
Emotions are vibrations
Humming along a string
Triggering the receiving end
Shooting soul in the heartbeat
The Oracle in the chest
Nothing speaks harder than a sign
Napalms raining rhythmic impact
A burning bush ignites the fire inside
We reign our impact
Consonance vs. dissonance
Controlled by the clash
We're cosmic music
More than just atoms
But it's the little things
Where you'll find the harmony
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
water lilies
dance gaily
on ripples
breezes
incessantly
arouse.
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 10:00 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
*she moaned an octave higher
and he waded deeper into the valley
dragging the low notes out of his person
till dissonance became consonance; and
a soft symphony caressed their souls
in a quiver to oblivion*
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 11:58 AM UTC
you glazed bricks blue
at Ishtar Gate,
deep seas where
lion, bull and dragon dwell
you are featured on
the gold funeral mask of Tut,
adorning his brow line
in deep eternal hues.
your name is summoned
several times
in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
the oldest known piece of literature
known to exist.
your mere
consonance
of L's
and slant
assonances:
eleven tongues licking all my holes.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 12:56 PM UTC
We haven't collided yet
I haven't stumbled on the right words to say
until after the fact
The ghost of the stairway
haunting in consonance
praying for coincidences
Standing on introductions
during the ritualistic deconstruction
of archetypal meeting grounds
That awkward walk dance thing
we're doing with divine intervention
At least that's how I wishful think sometimes
It's better than the paranoid nature of my reality
I swear the moon's trying to follow me down
where I stare to the void and submit my crown
and it's these little things that'll save your sanity
In the end, we're just atoms anyway.
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 7:34 PM UTC
Love is a Phoenician breeze,
Purest abjad of Tyrian purple and royal blue,
Pillow bearer of golden consonance between kings.
Love is a Phoenician trader over deepest-sounded seas,
Far-blown nomad that still wants for the thunder of golden drums
And the rain that comes in rounded vowels of water.
Because love has no tribe but is the purest nomad.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 12:17 AM UTC
We were always tripping on ways to make it out.
Long winding roads to backwards homes,
we never took too long.
I had a way with words
but not with speaking them too clearly-
I could only write them too be understood.
I was a little too passive aggressive and not enough passive voice-
Built upon analogies, not using enough antonyms.
Too much consonance and not enough consistency.
Always too dynamic for this static world.
We drove each other crazy.
Took words and turned them into roads always intersecting.
We never thought to stop and look at the scenery.
I never thought to ask where we were going.
You told me buckle up and I always asked you why-
The answer never left your lips.
You just gave a smile that mimicked the skyline and I let you take me there.
To the back alley of your mind and watched you race past the speed limit.
You told me to put on my seatbelt.
But you never wore yours-
You drove me to edge of insanity and left me there alone.
You drove away and watched as I tried to run after you.
But you kept driving-
and I'm still running after you.
Tracing my footprints on the pavement
Trying to match the tire tracks
I keep running back.
Even though I know you're long gone.
Insanity is a destination
I didn't want to reach
but somehow I arrived here anyway.
Somehow you drove me to it.
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 9:19 PM UTC
When life
becomes a vagrant
and death
an unsung train
there you will find me
oozing notes into night's horn
moon-beams drenched
with midnight's blues
rattle, ripple, shake
distorted city light
dancing barefoot
on crescent waves
I ponder,
wander,
wait.
to reflect
upon reflections
- as the moon,
in her wistful way,
seeps sonatas
of wayward days
and in the distant dissonance
of constant consonance
She, too,
waits.
Mar 19, 2014
Mar 19, 2014 at 1:41 AM UTC
Rain drops of you everywhere,
Appearing and disappearing
From sky to earth
I cannot grab you but I feel your existence
I see your form but only understand you as formless
A hurricane of thoughts trap me,
Puddles of you flood my heart
Every step is one closer to you,
And the more I see through you,
The better I understand my essence
Because when I look into the mirror,
I see a road with no beginning or end
A perfect circle
Every memory of you unites inside of me
A revelation of wisdom that we have no difference
We are the same exact being
Now you are pregnant with my future,
My past is just a haunting ghost,
Melodic words you compose,
With a heart that emotes passion
Two beats per bar
An infinite number of bars
You and me: One whole note
Dissonance is the sound when we are alone
Together we resolve to consonance
We are fire and water as one
Finally united peacefully
Aug 10, 2011
Aug 10, 2011 at 11:45 AM UTC
Be brave! Be brave!
I hear the cry
call sharply through
the enveloping mist;
every evening the fog settles
down atop this sleepy town.
*'Though temptation bleeds
from every fractured brick!*
In this mist I feel
invisible; a sprite, a specter --
an evening wisp diffusing
down streets and alleys.
The darkened smudge of
another average man.
He walks by, equally ephemeral,
and dissolves again into the haze.
So it has been until now,
even without the fog.
They always pass by,
fading again into the haze.
*Although the sea may take no pity
on a stranded boat, do not give up hope!*
The fog is my sea, and frosted
grays my gradient to infinity.
Vacant echoes answer my calls:
"How are you?"
Okay. I'm always okay.
Then listless lapses into silence.
I wonder if passion died with God.
If it has, you're the one who killed it.
Formless voices fill the air,
murmurs with pangs of guilt.
Growing and growing,
the dissonance turns to consonance:
Silly child, it's all in your head.
The streets are no longer familiar,
my own hands now seem foreign.
I hasten to catch up to another soul;
someone living to help me find the ground.
Only my footsteps sound in the night.
No one else is awake at this hour.
Insomnia, alone, takes these walks with me.
All the while commenting on my folly
and the white, beckoning infinity.
Mar 4, 2013
Mar 4, 2013 at 1:33 AM UTC
Involved in a constant fracas with his own self,
On went he to find peace on the road to nowhere
And there again he was deceived by mirages,
Mirages of the paradise world he wanted to be a part of.
And when the picture of the glacial reality surfaced out, he went back in time
For the fear of the glacial reality sent shivers down his spine
He came to a standstill with only barrenness around
And with a thud back he came to the ground
The heart and the mind were seldom in consonance
For the mind had to thwart the heart of its feelings
Feelings, so intense that would involve the payment of penance
The probabilities of the reality surfacing out were as dim as a dark desert night
For the words had been well concealed in the surreptitious corners of his soul.
The bone-chilling cold of the desert would succor his heart of the fight
Is he on his own or will he have someone to make him feel whole?
When the mind loses its mammoth battle with the heart
The reality,sweet as honey, would come to existence and lose its sole essence
A catastrophe would then descend
Only the Heavens know the repercussions it would have
Maybe there'd be a silver lining in his eternal dark clouds.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 2:42 PM UTC
Our kingdom come
Which now stands lost
To its self-imprisonment in vice,
Finds itself in consonance
With the end its ways have wrought.
Soon we’ll find
Our only chance
To guide the blind
To righteous sight
-A chance that greets us with open arms
Opened by their lack of direction:
We herald now
The bell that tolls
For the impermanence
Of coddling sin,
Which brings with it destructive fires
That wipe away the cultures of decay.
We’ll stand among
The righteous flames,
Prepared to help
With loving hands
Those who survive the cleansing blaze:
Possessing eyes that see in firelight.
Burn
Will towers imprisoning minds!
Razed to dust
Will be walls that divide!
We must show this world new light
From which no one will want to hide.
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 6:54 PM UTC
I will have etched my name
into the stars
With my fingernails
being pulled apart
Dissonance fades
as consonance grows
And I've come to realize
there's no such place as home
Yet
What cannot be found
must instead be made
From the very same dirt
where you make your grave
Though the grievance is heavy
the ship still runs its course
Though the carriage is ablaze
it's still pulled by his horse
Voice
A reason to move on
without my fellow man
Because everyone does
whatever they can
Lie, cheat, steal
to backstab is a must
I truly believe
that his reason is just
Because
An opinion to the sky
it's like a cloud to the fish
Try as he might
he'll never get his wish
It's drowned out by the wind
and murdered by the storms
Cremate the dream
and let the ashes lie warm
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 4:12 PM UTC