"etudes" poems
Corpses proliferate in soaring violence; heirloom of franchise and eminence— perish in erosion.
Timid denizens of derision, cynicism in roaring silence — optimism’s paling vapor—commodity of Indecision, our halcyon days forgotten.
Chosen token of audacity; the onyx maladroit feigns, prevaricating beneath the Sacred canopy.
Etudes of apathy; attrition unlamented; streams of guile— quixotic squall conversely merge — veiled conceit, eloquent arrow of equivocation.
The policy of attenuation.
Treason’s vine obscured beneath the blind surf of consent.
© 2014 & 2016 W. S. Warner
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 3:12 PM UTC
Muffled moaning
Rhythmic, robotic
Bleeding through walls
Is that what I sound like?
It doesn't sound fun
It sounds quite boring
Repetitive squeaks
In 3/4 time
I'd use rubato
I'd be espressivo
No etudes for me
Just ad libitum
But for now I lay
Sexiled to the couch
Wishing I had someone
To make music with
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 12:24 AM UTC
A private party
Etudes
People around me
Vanity and beauty
From where I sat
A glow of hope
In an ashen sky
Abandoned arguments
Reviews and dismal news
Changing moods
Pauses for profanity
Shadows and reality
Simulacrums
Patented predictions
Solemnity and sorrow
Corpses for the coroner
Silence.
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 4:03 AM UTC
'
"In the world of mortals there's no greater perfection than music."
~ Impeccable Space Poetess
'
Divine music beats
bombard my being
as non-rippened ripples
The surface of my ear drums aches
without perfectly harmonious
sounds
complementing
Roses blossom in a quiet garden,
some lavish quietudes here, where
I've got enough peace and not
the right space for a siren's songs
enthralling enchantment
Searching at the random pace
for the most peculiar music ~
thunders in my thoughts!
Those undiscovered waves
appear as lustrous song lenghts,
as limbs of a sound corpus slumbering
in the solace of silence and rhythm
Deep bits bite my emptiness
and this wanton yearning
forces me to reflect upon
this uncultivated
wilderness
and
what's there to miss at all means
'
***lovable etudes
classical chello drifts
bansuri flutes***
'
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 9:14 AM UTC
.
Scurrilous birds fly by,
To nest in the little painted
Houses left clear for them,
In awkward circles they romp
Their peculiar dramas
With ****** wings.
Do they even witness
The skies revolving canvas,
New masterpieces each day,
How the light shimmers
In the sparkle rays of sun,
How the golden fields,
Of vales in sighted sweep
And dance, airy etudes,
By the windfall gusts
So suddenly arising?
These visions are marks
For but few, who hear time
As it plays in stepped quartets
Of the spiraling seasons song,
For the lone mercies, gifts,
To ones most gentle, merest,
Spirited eyes who gaze deftly,
Deep in sacred days,
From a window.
.
Dec 22, 2018
Dec 22, 2018 at 7:36 PM UTC
the klaxon carols of your grief belie the golden pipes of your madness.
the cherubs embedded in your lost happiness
slip through cracks in your voice. James Joycean.
the fugue, your discord dims, seeps through the gauze
of your field dress. your wound holds the root note
oozing Rorschach ~ Rachmaninoff
jungian etudes allude
to a deep you at the bitter end
gnawing on sweet bones to marrow sip
from the holy grail and -
a humble pagan *** i greet you at the airport, barefooted.
found you
talking to a cloud
in your blue sky ***** it was shaped
like an anvil cloud in your iris
watched as you forged
lightning bolts -
fit to hinge
heaven's
door.
we had the same flight at two different altitudes.
and i loved you more.
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 3:34 AM UTC
In between shear white and jet-black
with a strong dollop of indigo blue,
lies the pale uncertainty of grayness
the most God-awful hue.
Grayness frustrates the senses.
Grayness stipulates malaise.
A shroud of indecision
arrests the imagination;
chained in wisps of doubt.
The definition of things
routed in a solitary
palette of insincerity.
Grayness negates options.
Grayness obscures landscapes.
Objects disappear
into walls of foggy smiles,
whispering repetitive monotones
of monotonous monologues
in incomprehensible language.
The mind is muted in a pall of haze.
Endless colorlessness of the days.
Days upon days of arctic blight.
Midwinter's endless drama.
White dust
sprinkled on the brain,
layering coats
of a suffocating
ashen pallor.
Dimming the wit,
Quelling the spirit.
Thoughts of light are captured
then lost
in craggy crevasses
of a dull blackened cranium.
Light can't touch the eye
Plaque builds in a hearts ventricle
Warmth escapes the body
and evaporates through
the magic of convection.
A vision remains;
barely an apparition
of a distant
dissipating ghost.
Belgian Café
Hudson St.
NYC
1/29/99
Music Selection:
Roslavets, Three Etudes
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 9:52 AM UTC
.
Scurrilous birds fly by,
To nest in the little painted
Houses left clear for them,
In awkward circles they romp
Their peculiar dramas
With ****** wings.
Do they even witness
The skies revolving canvas,
New masterpieces each day,
How the light shimmers
In the sparkle rays of sun,
How the golden fields,
Of vales in sighted sweep
And dance, airy etudes,
By the windfall gusts
So suddenly arising?
These visions are marks
For but few, who hear time
As it plays in stepped quartets
Of the spiraling seasons song,
For the lone mercies, gifts,
To ones most gentle, merest,
Spirited eyes who gaze deftly,
Deep in sacred days,
From a window.
Apr 29, 2017
Apr 29, 2017 at 2:31 PM UTC
old friends gather
tied together
by lines of
silver silk
memory
threaded from
heart to heart
embedded in thought
and action
actor trained
like the rhythm
of drumming fingers
on raked stage
toungue twisted greetings
bring saltwater to eyes
searching for the mentor
a congregation of etudes
belies, the sadness,
laughter hides the absence
shared memory,
memories shared
bring life into focus
years pass by
but still, the silk threads
play the heartstrings
and still we raise our
eyes in ritual goodbyes
and hug each other closer
til the next gathering
old friends remembering
the good times
Jan 10, 2017
Jan 10, 2017 at 8:26 AM UTC
I was once a classically trained pianist:
My nails cut weekly down to the bit
and internal tongue *ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-tee-tee
ta-ta, tom* tuned to the metronome.
Daily hours meant:
bent stick straight up
scales and etudes then
sonatas and scherzos and waltzes and nocturnes and preludes and arias
and movements memorized
by fingers that knew the way
and weight of adjusted arms.
What is the value of
a wrong note alone
or amongst many,
of memory incapable
and fingers fallible?
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 1:24 PM UTC
It was like cigars on the air vents
Of a toddler's room
The coiling smoke of regrets
And the crooked sounds and numbing
Songs of an old guitar
Barfing tunes that nobody's ever heard before
Only a time where everyone had ears to listen
He sat upright in his white chair
Taunting the clouds with his raunchy
Etudes of longing frustration
It was an appointment.
He tried to look presentable but
Failed miserably.
And now the stars pity him.
Apr 24, 2020
Apr 24, 2020 at 9:30 PM UTC
Noise, Annoyance, Nuisance my fellow attorneys!
Just a minute ...!
Let me recollect the boundaries of my universe. Let us unite in Pachalbel, in G minor. Let us find the common ground and melt melt melt....Oh!
The dog barks sonatas, bees buzz etudes of joy, sharp shrieks re tuned to whispering Nymphs...and I am the centerpiece of the heavenly vocal orgasm!
Just for a minute....
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 11:49 AM UTC
(this is another throw-back - a piece of writing, from high school, used in my Yale applications)
I pound the pillow, curse the clock and mock injunctions to rest.
The sun finally rises and its rays slantwise fall through the curtains as I dry my hair.
A meal, like a forced dose, we soak ourselves in wasted, nervous time.
Finally! We arrive at the competition...
Tension is here and tireless pressure.
The players waiting stiff as straw, tongues playing over dry lips.
Teachers and coaches unapologetic in their pallor.
Music drifts behind us and occasionally gasps, as imperfections play like daring circus tricks.
The sparkling prodigy returns disappointed, grimace of a smile, stricken, he stares away as we search for words, oh! clumsy, unrepairable prince!
Suddenly, its time and I wonder why we are hurrying, feeling weak, momentarily frightened to go there.
On this stage in this great, hushed hall, enormity suddenly dawns with mass enough to crush me.
At last, I sit before this odd Steinway music machine - my dearest mechanical friend.
A tremble resisted - the reward of mortal afternoons - endless practices fruit.
Eyes closed I prepare my best self - pushing all fear, all doubt, to the margins - and begin.
I hope, to recreate, one note at a time, Chopin's ancient impact - with hands flying, like tethered birds, I hammer out his timeless melody explosions, his streams of crazily exact math exam fiery semiquaver motions.. then, almost suddenly, I'm done.
I stand, joyously, nearly crying.. The world hasn't ended.
.
.
Songs for this:
12 Etudes, Op. 10: No. 4 in C-Sharp Minor by Vladimir Ashkenazy
Part of Your World by Emile Pandolfi
We gather together by Emile Pandolfi
Nov 3, 2024
Nov 3, 2024 at 9:30 PM UTC
where do you come from?
she asked me
and i told her,
to the best of my abilities,
where i was from.
i said i was born in the hell-oases of American heaven.
that i materialized from the shrieking avalanche of velocity itself
that i must have simply started to move
at some Point
and howled at the emptiness around that begged my primordial step.
i told her that howl was my father
and the Emptiness, my mother
that the pain of Eden being born, razed
and made fallow time and time again
had welled up a deep desire in me to die
to forget, and start again new.
when i told her i was adopted
and that i didn't really know my parents, she laughed
and shot me a glance that knew.
i spoke about layers laid down by Aphrodite's own gemchildren
of their soft kisses on my soft teen skin
how i came out of a hole that ripped in that skin
and met up with myself again
and glad to be new.
she looked upon me the kindest
when i told her i forged myself in tinny pattering etudes
on guitars, strung
in patient worksmanship,
and balanced the grave humanity
and its facts so grave on shoulders
that had begun to shiver deeply
i'll never forget it,
she looked at me
with the most profound
empathy.
you never were
she said,
and she spoke the slow truth.
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 3:00 AM UTC
a century skipped
from one soup line
to the next
never thought I would
stand in one, a homeless octogenarian
who doesn't like soup
the library serves sandwiches,
Eden’s apples too, on Mondays, but gray Sundays
they are closed, so here I be
at a holy house
that feeds beggars, bankers
and ****** but only after servicing
our souls, with etudes on eternity
and other hymns to which
I am deaf
tomorrow I will visit the VA
for my monthly meds, free potions
to pacify me while I wait for a bed
in the shiny new castle,
forever being built
in the meantime, I get the shed
behind the shack, of another "brother"
who tells me war stories
that can't be true, since he
was but ten and two when
the last bird chopped its way
into the Saigon sky
the embassy below yet teeming
with ghosts, and the screaming hordes,
scurrying still in a conquered land, desperate
victims of our proud command
I don't tell him he does not
speak the truth, for he gets even more
potent pills than I to keep
his demons at bay
today the broth has chicken
and rice, and our platoon slurps in unison
after another plaintive prayer
to a god I never knew
tomorrow, over my white
bread and bologna, we will
be able to sup in silence, in the
calm cathedral of tomes
where I will try in vain
to comprehend the mystic
Kabbalah, or perhaps read The Grapes of Wrath
to hoist healing hope of suckled redemption
before my ancient eyes
.
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 5:13 PM UTC
i see elephants in your tone
honorary delegates to the symphony’s throne
violins voicing interludes that are attuned
to the watery worlds of young mermaids
who create splashing inversions upon musical modes
your composition sheets hold my soul in throes of solitude
resplendent hues on the emptiness of nocturnes, etudes and poems
Jun 10, 2019
Jun 10, 2019 at 9:37 AM UTC
Scurrilous birds fly by,
To nest in the little painted
Houses left clear for them,
In awkward circles they romp
Their peculiar dramas
With ****** wings.
Do they even witness
The skies revolving canvas,
New masterpieces each day,
How the light shimmers
In the sparkle rays of sun,
How the golden fields,
Of vales in sighted sweep
And dance, airy etudes,
By the windfall gusts
So suddenly arising?
These visions are marks
For but few, who hear time
As it plays in stepped quartets
Of the spiraling seasons song,
For the lone mercies, gifts,
To ones most gentle, merest,
Spirited eyes who gaze deftly,
Deep in sacred days,
From a window.
Jun 10, 2016
Jun 10, 2016 at 7:49 PM UTC
Life happened to me
As I listened to etudes
And read philosophy
As I smoked
A few cigarettes m
And ate a lot of rice
As my beard turned grey and
my hair had to be dyed black
As my love matured
and i matured with it
And
I let it happen to me
Nov 2, 2021
Nov 2, 2021 at 11:19 AM UTC
Dark stormy unspeakables
form eclipses of the shining sun
and the sarcastic ecstasy of a drained emotional high, of cutting veins
while scathing shards of soul
are struggling against the unearthly cyclone,
in conjunction with dirt so mundane
form a manifesto of fire
to drag the heathen into hatred
scorch the earth to raise
a plagued farm of scuttling scarabs
beneath the morphing skin
of diseased brain matter
splattered on canvases.
The cosmic cantatas of hope's celestial voices
coldly calculate into oblivion
while hordes of thunderstorms
in calamitous cacophony
set fire to the wilderness
food to fuel the demons
that crawl into our eyes and retinas
moving our nerves like we're marionettes
severing the stockpiles of memories in our psyche
forcing forgetfulness and ignorance
upon our fretted, filtered minds
and make us fail to recollect
those sunny days
hiding behind the army of darkness
singing etudes to unknown questions
praying to the eternities
or maybe begging?
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 7:49 PM UTC
_In Reply to Lori Jones McCaffery_
"Poetry Challenge 1: One sentence, 17 syllables"
_I'm doing a variation and writing a poem consisting of only 17 syllable lines:_
Born with everything possible; how disappointing it came to this,
watching dull rain erode the snow from chilled off-white to curb-frozen ash,
drinking old Ardmore and lamenting an ironic philosophy,
Evan's law - as disposable income rises, so do all the bills.
"Poetry Challenge 2: 10 Words - Time, Place, Emotion"
I was thirty-nine in Washington with a Turkish girl:
I chased my feelings for two years until I found
her in bed with someone else. So, to hell with her:
I'd rather get drunk and watch the snow melt.
Feb 13, 2025
Feb 13, 2025 at 9:18 PM UTC
Scurrilous birds fly by,
To nest in the little painted
Houses left clear for them,
In awkward circles they romp
Their peculiar dramas
With ****** wings.
Do they even witness
The skies revolving canvas,
New masterpieces each day,
How the light shimmers
In the sparkle rays of sun,
How the golden fields,
Of vales in sighted sweep
And dance, airy etudes,
By the windfall gusts
So suddenly arising?
These visions are marks
For but few, who hear time
As it plays in stepped quartets
Of the spiraling seasons song,
For the lone mercies, gifts,
To ones most gentle, merest,
Spirited eyes who gaze deftly,
Deep in sacred days,
From a window.
Sep 22, 2015
Sep 22, 2015 at 7:20 PM UTC
*Complete
A song
simple
in the emotions
sung as melodies,
woven
into the fabric of time
drifting along the edges
of a night sky
and into your heart.
A simple song
we are
sung
in widening circles
dance
continuous and complete
in lover’s ache
defined
as in your touch,
fingers speak soliloquy
and I create etudes,
opus and symphony,
my love to you.
We are a simple song,
a rainbow, colorful
complete.
Aztec Warrior/redzone 10.11.16
(Note: written after watching an art film- “Youth)*
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 7:15 AM UTC
/|\ /|\
/|\ /|\ /|\
/|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\
"""""
Whether composed,
ailing...or up and about,
i'm always roaming
in this untouched forest,
where trees are tall with
inspirations...abundantly
blooming with lovely
words and phrases...and,
i always find you there.
i see you peeking, at the start
or, in the middle,
at the end...even between
the lines of a poem.
you're bound to mind
by indestructible ropes
made from vines and roots
of a durable tree...you seem
to be, unthinkably permanent,
not even Chopin's etudes,
or Schubert's serenade
could unbind you.
you emerge from buckets i fill
with water, or from the ***
where i make meat sauce...you
rise amongst tangled leaves of
the asparagus fern, or the crisp
and fragrant oregano plants.
there, you dwell pensively
within my forest of thoughts
because............because,
you are the poem,
the longest, i ever wrote.
~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~
~~~~~
sally b
©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
August 22, 2021
Aug 22, 2021
Aug 22, 2021 at 3:34 AM UTC
*sweetgrass encasing your soul
salvaged by streetwalkers barren as the road we came on
we broke the speed limit for pedestrians
as ****** equestrians chased our shadows home
joking, we laughed at the bones that framed our photographs
i see elephants in your tone
honorary delegates to the symphony’s throne
violins voicing interludes that are out of tune with young mermaids
who create splashing inversions upon musical modes
your composition sheets hold my soul in throes of solitude
resplendent hues on the emptiness of nocturnes, etudes and poems*
Mar 16, 2017
Mar 16, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
Scurrilous birds fly by,
To nest in the little painted
Houses left clear for them,
In awkward circles they romp
Their peculiar dramas
With ****** wings.
Do they even witness
The skies revolving canvas,
New masterpieces each day,
How the light shimmers
In the sparkle rays of sun,
How the golden fields,
Of vales in sighted sweep
And dance, airy etudes,
By the windfall gusts
So suddenly arising?
These visions are marks
For but few, who hear time
As it plays in stepped quartets
Of the spiraling seasons song,
For the lone mercies, gifts,
To the most gentle, merest,
Spirited eyes who gaze deftly,
Deep in sacred days,
From a window.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 2:23 PM UTC