"counterpoint" poems
He is
walking the white line
his arm a repetitious arc
sounding a single tone
timed to the pace
of hiking-boot feet
treading the pavement.
Saffron robes have grayed
over long meditative miles
witnessed by curious commuters
riding the pendulum away
from his purposeful daily counterpoint
the freedom held
in rhythmic ritual
how the mind stills and gathers
in the swinging blur of hand and stick.
I roll the window down
seeking precious solace
as I hurtle past
knowing
he walks for me too
I want to stop the car
fall in behind
feel the timeless drum
the stillness of salvation.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
~for Maya, the Persian Canadian farmer in the dell~
your poetic riddling questions without hesitation re
my claim conceptual
refuting with factoids actuarial experiential derived,
that cows need milkshake making daily by sunrise
nonsense
so you wake me up groggy on a Miami Saturday 6:00am
with a reciprocal poetic to a dashed off to contra my
code of conduct poem-mine;
and all that stumbles through my almost reset rested,
main stem cortex is an a ancient hebrew homily:
on Sabbath Saturday, even the cows sleep late
ok;
just tween us rare passes the day that a glancing phrase doesn’t register a stabbing whine “of me, of mine do sing” and your point counterpoint incision demands inspiration instant re-mission
around 10am when the amiable barn aminals sipping cuppa #3,
and the chicken children want a weekend brunch xtra feeding
are done, in the yard, put out to
pack n' peck n’ play
so that’s an intro to this work
that jumps the line of a
hundreds of other’s poems promised and overdue:
insight inside your crafted wake up slam slap was
pretty **** near the makers mark bourbon of this distillers
bourbon barrels bulbous poem’s bibliothèque that
has an impatient waiting list
of poems waiting anointing
each a personage~poem of that day it was birthed inscribed
this particular one for you,
~
my complexity non-Napoleonic
just humanoid each, here are my leaders from and
into a veining so lovely colored
each poem a waving wheat stalk
before these old tired eyes close to closing hear once more
“of me, of mine do sing”
so I follow all of you by dimming yellow light,
for this is the soil of nutriment rich from where my
words grow taller and the yellow infusion feeds my wheats,
the amber, the red hard and soft, the whites, the durums,
and mon préféré, prairie spring white,
which is my secret nickname for a duality woman,
poet and farmer,
posing riddles
that deserve answers*
maybe
—-
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2503650/little-ole-me-a-riddle-of-sorts/
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 11:17 AM UTC
The literati are moaning
about the crowning
of a comical smiley-face
with tears of joy
springing from its eyes
as Oxford Dictionaries 2015
"Word of the Year"
it's historic
indicative of a generation
raised on media shorthand
though some people think
the distillation of thought
to acronyms, symbols, emoji
is a bad thing too
but in these icons
heavy black heart
face throwing a kiss
reversed hand with middle finger extended
even the simple : )
I see emotion
stripped bare
the whole gorgeous
heart-rending, horrible
hateful range of it
illustrating the dark
and light
of who we are
as a human race
So I say hail and welcome
to the "tears of joy" emoji
may his vivid counterpoint
shine around the world
eclipsing all the words
we've learned this year
for hate.
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 11:29 AM UTC
Please,
Forgive
This counterpoint.
For
loving you now
Is off the point.
Now that the wild
Lilies
Halt in the cities
And build their nests
In the asphalt.
LazharBouazzi, February 1, 2017
Jan 31, 2017
Jan 31, 2017 at 4:36 PM UTC
Contrapuntal
— adjective, Music.
- pertaining to counterpoint.
- composed of two or more relatively independent melodies sounded together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If we set this site poetic to music,
there would be two
contrapuntal melodies.
A harmony of disharmony,
met and matched by a
single refrain,
a harmonizing voice
meeting the needs
of the sopranos, the altos.
the low of the lowest basso.
I am in love,
life painting me beautiful.
The dawn is cracking,
opening my heart with love.
*I am a heartbroken shell,
in a living hell of neverending.
There is no light
in my bed at night, bulb broken.*
Let's write of joy,
celebrate reunification, singularity,
of our place,
our happy collision,
our universal location.
For where you are,
I exist,
no where else.
*Less than nothing,
gave and given in,
found a lost plateau
where there is no substance, only
pieces of broke,
pieces of ache,
pieces of brown glass*
I live you.
I die you.
There is but one color, and it is the color of us.
There is but one color, and it is colorless.
There is one vow for two,
the vow is one!
Keeping it,
natural, easy,
time is unrecorded,
forever is immeasurable.
*There are no vows ever kept,
only lies,
passing promises of vanity.
Never is the only time
that can be recorded.*
A new world symphony
that never ends.
What then
the unifying
refrain
uniting joy and pain?
Write it down.
Write it up.
Write it and believe.
We will listen,
and care,
having been there,
both ways,
both sides now
we are
write
alongside you.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 7:22 AM UTC
~~=<♡>=~~
You...
The counterpoint
to my music...
... with a different instrument.
SoulSurvivor
(C) 2/16/2015
~~=<♡>=~~
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 11:01 AM UTC
The night becomes you -
hair coiffed in fashion
illuminated eyes reveal attraction,
the scent of body oil
pervasive,
ambient music evolves
persuasive
savory rhetoric,
cabernet erodes my inhibition
no contrition, turn the ignition.
The night becomes you -
you wear it well
an amalgam,
ardor and insouciance -
redefining glamour,
ephemeral moments
dial down the sunlight,
I am slain - voice and accent
weave their spell;
black dust coat, white hat,
a pair of posh boots
they live to tell.
The night becomes you
rhyme scheme - lyrical poetry
sophisticated venue, table for two
ensconced, the
leather lounge,
similitude within difference;
undulation - cadences of
counterpoint -
poise and peril of duality
we inhabit the floor.
Postprandial, conversation extempore;
machinations of intoxicating discourse,
I could drink your words -
artistic milieu- beguiling imagery,
sonant susurrations
penetrate my being.
The night becomes you -
theoretical locutions
phrasing depth and humor,
undiluted amour, tensions resolve
frame by frame,
solidify the affair
and validate the rumor
subsumed in sequence, pulsating,
igniting the sapid interior flame
silver screen ending,
effusive reviews
two hearts collide and form one;
the cherub's arrow finds its aim.
©2008 & 2011 W.S. Warner
Sep 22, 2011
Sep 22, 2011 at 10:34 PM UTC
/
I was very immature
My Sixth sense until then
Could not understand his words
Listened to all the strange things
How to tune in to that!
It would be a void in my soul
Felt a strong gravity
Ever would leave the door open
Pull away the home would have been without
Consistently in the nature of
Deep darkness,
Off and on beside a Chime river
Ever in the green meadow under a tree
What to get a!
But I remember
The smell of the ancient world,
The taste of the salt water,
Think the creation of
The epoch learned
After Rain very earthy flavor,
I would think would be the essence
Of the air *******
But what a surprise!
How do I know thee fragrance,
Didn't see thee before
Didn't imagine thee face
Only I have to paint
The dark night sky color in,
Sometimes wings to fly
Like a free bird,
Ever saw the weaver birds scatter house,
To be surprised to see the purple color inside
The Black berry
Slowly I grew older then
My Fifth sense,
The more active
My Sixth sense,
Like the branches grew
I saw the the ground to make
I put the plants saw the,
Seen Counterpoint to the creation of,
Seen be created of the soul
You have caused me
When I have seen
I understand that
You do not someone else
Thy existence
Is hidden within me-
/
@Musfiq us shaleheen
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 4:03 PM UTC
the good old baritone advises her,
his sopranino daughter tweets disjoint,
arpeggio his point, her counterpoint
a syncopated rhythm of meter,
her high pitched protestations in her pleas,
and low-pitched grumbling sighings alternate,
as puntal, contrapuntal altercate,
to musically the rolling of her eyes,
his stern yet soft soprano wife defers,
while yielding to her baritone's movement,
conducting, though, the orchestrated theme,
as tenor, alto sons caesur' occurs,
her soothing background voice reveals eschewment,
with daughter's movement stuck 'tween measures' beams
(C)2012, Christos Rigakos
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 9:19 PM UTC
Why do I have to endure:
The company of pain....
Emotional
Mental
Physical
Spiritual
Hardship....
Taking care of very elderly parents
Being a Targeted Individual
(I was on staff at the "Church" of
Scientology. I left without permission. I'm outspoken against them. They hunt down and target such people... and make their
lives A PURE MISERY)
Being a person who knows the
Truth but is perceived as insane
Being single
Being childless (barren)
Being smart enough to know that
I'm not smart enough
Having crippling arthritis
Having deformed feet to the point
that I'm barely able to walk...
Should I go on...? No.
Instead I shall praise You!
I'll thank you for:
Being alive at all to experience this.
The counterpoint symphony of birdsong... and the beautiful day
The company of my ageing parents
The fact that I still have all my
family and friends
The lovely cacti and other plants
out here on our porch
My extant talent and ability
The fact I can walk at all
Clothing to wear
Shoes on my feet
Food to eat
A roof over my head
Good eyes and ears
The use of my upper body
Appreciation of beauty
The ability to read and write
The fact that I never married
the wrong man and brought
children into an unsafe and
unhappy environment
But most of all, God, I'm grateful for
***THE SACRIFICE OF YOUR
PRECIOUS SON THAT I MAY HAVE
S A L V A T I O N.
THANK YOU! !!!***
♥ Catherine
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 10:41 AM UTC
What's my name?
Take that universal,
that yeah yeah, that
ohm and play it backwards.
I'm that undercurrent,
the invisible force that pushes the hand, that pushes
the red button, that levels seven stories--for?
What's my name?
Take that post-post-modern literature,
that self-serving academia-meets-nihilism,
and think as far opposite, Herculaneum/Uruk,
and you might just find it, my name,
carved in Aramaic or Latin in a dark wet cave,
forgotten, misspelled in a dead language.
What's my name?
Look just past that buffering screen,
right before the pixelated beheading starts.
I'm between the zeroes and ones in that heaven-place,
the Internet, where people go when the final death takes.
What's my name?
Take that ever so subtle airport terminal muzak,
and listen for the counterpoint, the competing rhythm.
It, my name, swirls and mingles with that ever flowing
crowd, weary and reduced to numbered tickets and departure times,
speaking fifty different languages, a flattened and recurring Babel.
Take that ohm, and play it, play it backwards.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 10:53 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
Through the laden flights of pot-stewed gulls -
Deepening in red rosaries to poltroon,
Contaminated by an urgent wish,
The sun-soaked merry bandits blew.
Each to each, and, mingling with that sweaty palm,
Dolorous eyes sad-greeted the fleeing dawn.
Pancreas then, the earth-girdled Titan swam,
Anon the rising tide to stem.
Dentist the night, repair to dance-floored beams,
And rising melodiously ever anew to pine,
Sweet ***** dreaming of her saw-toothed chemise
Saw the fine end to the upstart king.
Curtains swayed against my pearly doom
Not brightly was your plainting song
Palpitating in earthly measures anew
Or seeking once more the mighty to appease.
O David, in thy glance the silver moth did live
Long dawns. An enemy of the swordfish,
He menaced us so long. And now?
Sporadic is the demise of depth!
A silver sea, or rather a sea with a fine multitude of
silver points
Caressing my eyes like toothless counterpoint to the
stately blue.
It gave a floor to a weening being of prancing gait and
measured thighs.
She smiled.
And the sea broke and roared, as ever,
and I heard it once more.
I saw too the sky, which had sufficient blue.
Cooled by the sea,
warmed by the setting rays and mild air, the body
luxuriated in perfect
temperature. She did not smile, but perhaps she did..
My body, I mean.
We came away, from there, as from all places to meet
another need.
of darkness and quiet. Foamed the elements of slaking
portions of
mysterious
substance. Surrendered to the moving body without
real life.
Borne along on a
stream of liquid desire residing in another's
breast.
Relinquishing her to a
perfect nothingness like lead or caviare.
Oh, and who awaited me? She was imprisoned
but beautiful
and I thought
quite happy. I don't think she even wanted to come
to me,
or so it seemed. But she was happier too outside,
in the waning sun.
Mainly she had been safe and free.
And there's an end of this day, which roamed
whither it would,
for I did not attempt to chain it. Now I flee it.
Apr 7, 2012
Apr 7, 2012 at 3:55 AM UTC
When thunder split the night sky,
and rain pounded the earth, dreams
pushed Avery to my bed: "Dad,
I can't sleep, can I sleep with you?"
Only barely awake I pulled the covers
aside to make room, then heard his
breathing next to me,
soft beneath the rain,
counterpoint to thunder,
only a small puff of wind,
but strong enough to push his ship
away from shore, heading toward the horizon.
Jul 1, 2013
Jul 1, 2013 at 1:04 AM UTC
Movement no.1
Andante con moto
Farewell.
I am leaving you
with the sweetness
and the sadness
of every creature on this earth
draped over my shoulders
as a shroud
We rest now
before the final struggle
looking down upon our lives
from a precipice
The wind calls up
a faint sound
a song
of healing
as resignation
So bring forth the dirge
let dogs and oboes
cue the horns
as we embark
upon a tender struggle
We are whipped back
and forth
between grief and glory
in this life
an indifferent life
lush with raw power
But thankfully
at the end of every day
there is sleep.
Movement no. 2
Im tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb.
Dance returns
and goes mad
Who could lift a leg
that high?
Not I.
The music careens
off the walls
in a dissonant minuet
of the hours
The clenched teeth
of each and every minute
grind here
as if time itself
took heel
and made a sparkling trace
across the pines
of this exalted floor of dance.
Movement no. 3
Rondo Burleske: allegro assai. Sehr trotzig.
A music major's delight.
Fugues against fugues.
Dense contrapuntal figures
and sarcastic counterpoint
shouting out
from the back of the class.
And then
just love
confused perhaps
but real love indeed.
Movement no. 4
Sehr langsam und noch zurüclhaltend
The violin
noblest of instruments
takes its place
In bitter sorrow
life soon lost
the fruit of the tree
is extinguished
the promise of green days
burned by drought
All is withheld.
There is peace at the end
but no joy
the abyss is only silence
and a taut string
connecting us
to eternity.
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 10:47 PM UTC
.
*A gemshorn and a mandolin
strike up counterpoint melodies,
as a harp and viola
caress the notes of a minuet.
Soft waves of music creep
around the joy of the Hall,
cuddling the fibres of granite stone
with a warming fire for all.
And she steps to the fore,
slippers of silk gliding so slow,
eyes as blue as robins eggs,
smile sweet as a full moons glow.
Hair laced with summer flowers,
a long dress of velvet green,
and the shawm she is ready to play
held lightly by fingers so keen.
Her tongue moistens shyly,
as the reed approaches her lips,
with fingers dancing over holes,
and deftly into a trance she slips.
Descending chords in choral hue,
drip colours into an aching heart,
the sweetest of mediaeval muses,
playing well her minstrels part.*
© Pagan Paul (21/10/17)
Oct 23, 2017
Oct 23, 2017 at 4:01 AM UTC
The cello
mother of music
sings peacefully
from the eye of the storm
A peace purchased
at the price of certitude
Piano provides counterpoint
restrained
elegant
its curtains of sound
dream their own dreams
and a longing violin
makes love to
the air itself
We march deliberately
to this tempo
stepping in time
to the sweet
and terrifying strains
of our own mortality
The composer
died
at thirty one years.
Why - how
have I lived so long?
Perhaps
to hear this music as if for
the first time
and so share it
with the sky.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 8:34 PM UTC
6 sides
Latent enabler
Counterpoint to truth, amorphic
Dada to life
Callous Birth
Islands dripped in collagen
Mystic, effortless life
Tempests laden iota in tune
Riven
Licked flat, obtuse
Crescent stench
Pagan cells
Hazard the thought
Pick the Atlantic cherry
Reach further than comfort
Pushed & consumed
Spirited paste
Jesuit told in spheres
Lament interest, matted quill
Totem, Saxon tribe
Inflections of hearsay
And Swastikas on parade
Guilt of the blacksmith, undecided
The arms of tablets
Ashtrays & tropospheric light
Another page turned
Capsules filled with perfume
Loose skin lost in relics
Temporal lobe
Cautioned indignant
Pardon the prose
Sonnets dissolved in ethanol
Caricatures of the fleeting
Of our cities last broadcast
Absorbed by times gone
Glittered pestilence
Canceling subordinates, powdered Semtex
Soup of the sewer
Lift the butcher above your head
Nazca lines
Suborbital
Silk screen with *****
Horizontal qualm toward revulsion
Incursion
Calm, cued and cubed
Lab coats coated in pharmaceuticals
Base compound, ionic bond
Covalent CNS
Sympathetic vibration
Default to nature
To theorise movement
Agitate intolerance, turbulence
Beautiful thought
Calculate causality
Passenger of licked lips
Token to latex
Croft in ear, to taste
Unlaced tips, rings of halothane
Bliss
Intrigued with obscurity
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
A vicious attack of that crackling brainiac anthrax
To give back to society
Slack then just grab the heat,
Feed it to the needy who receive it thankfully.
Call it poetry.
Who could see repressed punctuality proceeded
By the kick of a hit or three?
Gimme these retrospective variants
To a counterpoint's last stand,
Or voices
Speaking to a lost cost for freedom
That rips at the rotting veins of humanity-
I stood up for what I believed in,
But the world will too crumble when the sun's light dulls dead.
You can call this rambling for something
To take the brain-scraping ache away-
The pain of the mistaken vacant escape.
Who's to say that we're all just thrown here
To die and to try to believe in something that exists,
And if we can't find it then we're lost and wrong and
Guilty.
Leave me barely breathing if the seeing is now ceasing
To a state of gray monotony,
And melancholy monsters creeping
Out from under the bed where my habits sleep-
And threaten with a scratch, hiss and screetch
To
Wake
Me
Up.
Jan 30, 2014
Jan 30, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
I spent my fifth grade year in school in my fourth new district
writing timed multiplication tests while blood fell from my nose
in hot fat drops splattering my papers,
a rusty brown organic counterpoint
to the red ink of my teacher’s note
“Emily- see me after class”
and my stomach dropped faster than the blood
or the bobble-headed Care Bear that my Social Studies teacher
threw out the window during class
because she once mentioned that she hated Care Bears
and so we covered her room with them.
I spent my fifth grade year at home in my parent’s bed
with blankets tacked over the windows and towels stuffed
into the cracks under the doors
while my parents tiptoed through the kitchen
and I dug my chewed off nails into my scalp trying
to claw the rot and smoldering ash out of my head
and flinched at every creaking floor board.
It was an old house.
The mourning doves called sycophantic dirges every dawn
(and noon, and dusk),
and I grinned when the dog chased them off to hide
with the one-eyed tom in the barn.
I tell you these things not to make you feel sorry for me,
but because I am confused how I can feel sorry for me
and yet miss that time so much.
In the end, I am left only with the firm conviction
that timed tests are every child’s bane,
and mourning doves are just country pigeons.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 4:20 PM UTC
Looking in the mirror tonight
I am 24 years old
I don't know what to make of myself
Pointed chin, seashell ears, hair wet and arcing
forwards from my shower
I'm wondering about my 25th year;
will it be a year of wonders, a golden year?
My left eye says no
It's distrustful, mirrored and shuttered
so all you get back is yourself
endlessly
There's a siren and a dog howling counterpoint:
seems omenish
My right eye looks more hopeful,
like it'll wink conspirationally at any moment
Better to have a star for an eye than the moon,
anyday.
Dec 13, 2013
Dec 13, 2013 at 6:54 AM UTC
Unpolished weathered wood plays on my palms,
I pull and reach and pull an even beat
Attending algae'd oars aqueous psalm
Altered by the tangled grass I meet,
in counterpoint small waves percuss the prow
Accentuating the pause before I cull,
Mellifluous zephyrs bowing across my brow
Enhance the exposition of the gulls,
Above the hem of heaven's dress the bright
Cerulean bodice trilled with Cirrus lace
Beguiles regard, but maddeningly polite
She smooths her skirt across the score of space
Eclipsing a poet's want to read the ruse,
This lady only lingers to amuse.
Aug 13, 2010
Aug 13, 2010 at 3:32 PM UTC
meaning is evidence of soul:
for it's in the heart and mind,
that meaning is conceived and perceived;
meaning is soul speaking to soul.
meaning separates symbols from
accidental scratches,
arrangements of stones,
noises and random motions.
but symbols are not meaning in themselves:
they are carriers of emotions and ideas,
as in a flower, or the rain,
or the rising and setting of the sun.
meaning is the counterpoint of meaning:
the juxtaposition of ideas and emotions, or their negations, or absence,
perceived by the heart and mind,
in the language of emotions and reasons.
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 6:33 AM UTC
Ego headspace, mindset phaneron life perception sight
the assumptions you operate under to simply get by
or focus on a series of tasks that seem to take
the majority of our lives. building always a beat
of building something without looking or even knowing or
being thoughtful about the thing you are building towards
out of fear of it's massive complexity and incomprehensibility
all of the unknown about it.
Death impudence pointlessness despair terror humility absolute antithesis contradistinction
nihilism gives transparency to the structure
Ephemeral and the mad passion to
work against those things
make the march wobbly to show it's deluded nature
show clear forceful severing ending sounds during counterpoint
May 3, 2014
May 3, 2014 at 4:22 AM UTC
7:00am
Shelter Island,
Sat Sep10
on the south west edge of the isle,
the slowrise sunrise just behind the trees,
so early day yet, no full frontal of a sun
bathing to wake up woman, babes asleeping, but the
animals know exactly this hours early
perfection.
indeed, the crazy squirrels are random
hither and dithering in spurts of energy,
only stopping to observe a viewing of the humans
nest~resting through the glass doors with their
inquisitive, self-possessed, bedside reckless manner,
perfected.
the suns pealing gleaming gleanings picks
out any shiny reflective surface that enhances
its low-rise greeting, with a chorale of living objects
singing “Hallelujah orb, what’s in store for us today,”
river~bay, wake-less, its becalming, marbling surface, again,
perfected.
me?
I’m mugged by the perfection intersection of
my eyes-scape, first coffee, the holy quietude, only
the regular soft breaths beside, lend a counterpoint
to these thoughts and the litany of chores the iCal happily, annoyingly, prematurely but with certainty lists, resistance (Walk!)
perfectly ok.
ok not to move an inch, watching this daily movie rerun,
that energizes hope, a contemporary localized contented without the
humdrum of blaring headlines, talking heads, and the
infiltration of the guilty unfulfilled responsibilities demanding a due,
then heavens signal me, Donovan, earbud singing Colors, confirmed
perfectly ok!
“*Yellow is the color of my true love's hair
In the mornin', when we rise
In the mornin', when we rise
That's the time, that's the time
I love the best*”
Sep 10, 2022
Sep 10, 2022 at 8:21 AM UTC