"frets" poems
The Swan from Cornwall
Oh gracious on the pond,
Reached out it wings
while singing his song
Listen my friend
like the frets on a guitar
I'll play you a tune
so distant so far
The words go like this,
So simple and pure
Ripples the effect
I have given the cure.
The banshee it screams
like sirens in the night,
the slow dive that surrounds
its about perfect flight
Oh swan you lifted me
from shadows of past,
No sin is untold
More stories to last
Gratitude and fortune
I wish you a fond
The Swan from Cornwall
Oh gracious on your pond
Sep 19, 2014
Sep 19, 2014 at 5:51 PM UTC
Maids, not to you my mind doth change;
Men I defy, allure, estrange,
Prostrate, make bond or free:
Soft as the stream beneath the plane
To you I sing my love's refrain;
Between us is no thought of pain,
Peril, satiety.
Soon doth a lover's patience tire,
But ye to manifold desire
Can yield response, ye know
When for long, museful days I pine,
The presage at my heart divine;
To you I never breathe a sign
Of inward want or woe.
When injuries my spirit bruise,
Allaying virtue ye infuse
With unobtrusive skill:
And if care frets ye come to me
As fresh as nymph from stream or tree,
And with your soft vitality
My weary ***** fill.
10.1k
Peter, my closest friend,
Worries.
Name it - he worries.
Shows it too,
In everything:
*Cause I worry
Bout everything,* he frets.
What advice can I offer:
Don't use Compound W.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 1:29 PM UTC
Hush, lullay.
Your treasures all
Encrust with rust,
Your trinket pleasures fall
To dust.
Beneath the sapphire arch,
Upon the grassy floor,
Is nothing more
To hold,
And play is over-old.
Your eyes
In sleepy fever gleam,
Their lids droop
To their dream.
You wander late alone,
The flesh frets on the bone,
Your love fails in your breast,
Here is the pillow.
Rest.
6k
Sweetheart silent killer manifests all inside my mind,
The moon’s a magnifying glass as it rises in the sky.
At 2 a.m. it giggles, a thick knife in its teeth,
And drops it down into my head as I lie underneath.
The glass I keep so carefully to remain ***** in the day,
Shatters and releases a burning, breathing self-assay.
A kaleidoscope catoptric, all frets out in the free,
A band of thought-filled thieves invade to steal my sleep from me.
Tossing and turning beneath the stars, I’ll wait til I burn out,
At night my brain is flooding and in daylight there’s a drought.
Lullaby myself with tears, wake up way too late,
Stuck as an insomniac, suicide’s sweet bait.
I wish I was an autumn leaf, I’d float into the sky,
And every fall I’d have the opportunity to die.
I don’t want to die, I just want to dream,
Instead of replaying my sick realities that make me want to scream.
But this will still all stay the same as my brain and blood run white,
I’ll feed myself with Satan’s sugar, the depressed primrose of the night.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 11:05 PM UTC
"She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
~Shakespeare, from 'Macbeth'
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 9:46 PM UTC
I drank once,
from the deep well of sleep
when cool waters refreshed this parched earth,
now barren without nourishing dreams.
My worries grow futile shoots
in the hardpack, they wither and die.
Ashes scattered dryly
fuel further frets.
This drought is not over.
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 11:10 AM UTC
Just a crack in the brick wall
A red rubber ball
The last time you can't remember
When you stood tall
The monotonous hologram
The seaside hotdog stand
The regrets piled higher
than any mountain can
Four stringed guitar
Home in an abandoned car
Courage in a bottle
Wishing still on the first star
Still he caresses the neck
Presses down the frets
Sings three octave blues
On life's reef of wrecks
He's free lost in the chords
The music opens doors
The pathway is as bleak as sin
While inside he reaches for more
He goes off to sleep
He has his dreams deep
About a paradise for losers
And a five string guitar
Oct 14, 2018
Oct 14, 2018 at 10:12 PM UTC
i'm going to die here, i know i will,
they change their scope of helping me,
every time i slide farther down the hill,
"you can have this pill at a certain time,"
"NO! Wait! We've changed our mind,"
"you can have it at this new time, how kind!"
"just make sure there's someone on who can tell the time.."
and if i lay here waiting, for what i may or may not get,
my hands will slowly tremble and my mind so deeply frets,
all alone in this wrinkled bed clothes, no one sees me yet,
but now the nurses have come to me with a little more regret:
"the doctor says you'll now have to wait 7 more hours for relief,
it seems he doesn't like being awaken at nighttime when he sleeps."
so, i get to feel my tears build up behind my bloodshot eyes,
no one is here at all to help me understand just why.
you should see me now alone trying so hard now not to cry,
all i feel is stunned, cold shock and this feeling that i will die
--i'm going to die here, bit by bit, inside out and all alone,
i don't know what to do or say, or how to make last atone,
for all i've done in my life, that has brought me to this place,
to compose this death-wish poem to read as tear-drops paint my face.
but, for now with nothing else left to do in my hospice room,
i do the last thing that i can do the best, just write and wait for doom.
is there anyone out there?
help, help, help me, i beg and try to plead!
will anyone please come here,
hold and hug me in my need?
i'm going to die here,
and i'll be all by myself,
left alone like a broken knick-knack
on a dusty shelf.
___________
Nov 6, 2010
Nov 6, 2010 at 8:45 PM UTC
Metal strings,
triangle pick,
painted board,
mind plays tricks.
Humming noise; the silence clicks.
Dust on frets,
bent-down spine,
aching chords,
blurred by time.
Still, I hum... though not in rhyme.
Jul 30, 2025
Jul 30, 2025 at 3:16 PM UTC
(I)
Her hour upon the stage,
She struts and frets.
Applause, admiration
Behind a mask to reflect.
In moments of true emotion,
Behind closed doors,
The mask would slip off
And shatter on the floor.
(II)
As years went by
And her heart withered,
She’d rather keep the mask on.
Revealing her true-self she feared
So secure behind the guise
So full of her-assumed-self.
She diffused into the mask
And the mask into herself.
(III)
Two eyes in the crowd
Shone apart from the rest.
They were there for the she,
She had always neglect.
While the crowds cheered on,
In those eyes at her affixed,
For a few flickering seconds
Her true self she glimpsed.
By the mirror she stood.
Hand clasped to her face,
In futile agony,
This mask to efface.
(IV)
“A mask may be adamant.
It may cover the face whole
But it can never drape
Those windows to the soul.”
“It will be difficult to search
The true-self long concealed.
Let these drape-less windows
The path reveal.”
“Look deep in mine eyes,” said he.
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 6:14 AM UTC
If I might only love my God and die!
But now He bids me love Him and live on,
Now when the bloom of all my life is gone,
The pleasant half of life has quite gone by.
My tree of hope is lopped that spread so high,
And I forget how summer glowed and shone,
While autumn grips me with its fingers wan,
And frets me with its fitful windy sigh.
When autumn passes then must winter numb,
And winter may not pass a weary while,
But when it passes spring shall flower again:
And in that spring who weepeth now shall smile,
Yea, they shall wax who now are on the wane,
Yea, they shall sing for love when Christ shall come.
4.4k
The oldest one has set the bar -
Brown eyes, brown hair, natural tan,
Teeth that look just the way teeth should with no aid from metal or NASA-patented plastics.
Kappa Alpha Theta, college homecoming queen,
Following in the footsteps of our parents,
To someday hand out bottles of pills with her God-given smile and white coat to match.
I know she's not perfect, but I like to pretend.
Then there's me.
Then the next youngest,
Long brown hair, massive brown eyes, pale skin with the occasional freckle.
Her awkward phase - back brace, teeth brace, allergies, inhaler, tall and gangly -
paid off in the best way.
She wears her high heels to high school and looks straight off the runway.
She wears her pointe shoes and unfolds like a plant growing in fast-motion.
She sits at the table and draws and eats nothing but carbs and still looks made of sticks.
She wants to be a cartoonist, people tell her to be a model, a ballerina,
Our mother insists she's far too brilliant.
Then the baby.
Thin blonde hair, blue-grey eyes with a ring on the outside, grey skin when she's tired.
As Dad says: the printer ran out of ink.
She's beautiful like the rest, of course, but
she's not finished yet, still learning that her peers are generally wrong.
She frets and worries, but she listens to the music I tell her to,
and her expensive pockets have less and less rhinestones.
I tell her not to hug me so much when I come home,
But it's fine. I'm proud of her.
Someday she'll stop screaming at our mother and realize what she has to look forward to.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 1:39 PM UTC
Coupling wind and fire
an terrific, tumultuous, take
Time waits for no man but of him
his fate,
the fellow frets and is frightened by fame,
Son of Father Time,
cannot merely hide inside its vase,
Blooming, what a fellow
hath he grown noble and sublime
soon to love and learn
the great burden of his time.
Sep 10, 2018
Sep 10, 2018 at 2:06 PM UTC
STOP CREEPING
(Road signs in Australia thus remind us to keep to the speed limit)
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare: MacBeth, Act 5 Scene 5.
Creeping, seeping, peeping, sleeping,
What’s the common factor through these ‘eep’ words deeming?
Shakespeare calls them dusty and aligns them up with death.
Our world calls it shadow but it chokes you out of breath.
Churches cannot see them so they flout invisible.
Jesus calls them idols yet they sound so plausible.
Christians follow teachers in a roundabout way.
Teachers crave disciples which determines what they say.
But these are all poor players on a poorly structured stage.
Their stage gives way. They tumble. They rise up in a rage.
“Life has not been fair,” they say, and “Where is God in that?”
Did they ask Him in the first place? Did they call God up to chat?
The churches have no answers. Now where do I go from here?
Go right back to the Bible, Friend. The truth is written there.
Check it yourself. It’s relevant to eras far and near.
Like natural laws it cannot change with fashion year to year.
So do not mix the fashion in philosophies of life
With Truth that stands forever among raging seas of strife.
Counselling in modern terms can get you sympathy,
But will it give you backbone for the next antipathy?
Feminism needed to support the weaker staff,
But now of our humanity it rejects one whole half!
And money is too much an issue when it must be said
That what is not of love is valueless to Christ our Head.
Of all the thousands who are found in church each seventh day,
How many can indeed discern the right and faithful way?
How many put their lives on hold for truth and nothing less?
How many first set out their plan and build their faith round this?
Is there not one who will apply to God for his blueprint
So s/he can play the part of power for treasure in Heaven’s mint?
The Spirit of Truth cannot be found where ideas pull such weight.
He’s somewhere else you don’t suspect. Chase Him, and don’t be late!
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 10:38 PM UTC
Black dress,
Black lace shawl,
Red cherry violin,
Black frets and strings,
Black bow, white mane or tail,
Tensely poised
To move along the strings
In dances sensuously slow,
Tantalizing strings
To vibrations sublime,
Singing listeners to sway
Eyes closed, adrift, in
Streaming consciousness.
Other movements quick and sharp,
Impossible for any heavy-wielded harp,
Dancing pirouettes of sound,
Jetting needles sharp,
Then reeling tremulous...
These caterwaulings of a horse's tail
Held tautly on a stick.
A deaf man here beside me,
Only seeing, reads about
The music that I hearing, feel...
Somehow feels the Muse,
Sways to the dancing bow.
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 11:17 AM UTC
#*Dripping wet
December gets
It frets
The rains have overstepped
It’s not July
No not September
It’s been long August has slept
Winters just checked into December
Changing the air to mode, cold
But the rains have overstepped
Cold and wet December gets
Last it is, but never the least
Brings in joy and festivities
Within a day or maybe two
The rains will vanish in thin air
Pleasant weather and sunshine
December makes promises fair*#
Dec 2, 2021
Dec 2, 2021 at 6:35 AM UTC
I had thanksgiving with my St. Lucian family, my
loud, unapologetic,
laughs-too-loud, generation-gap
homemade *** heads in phones,
blasting dancehall music
old ladies dancing
clap-back
talk-back
family.
"Play us a song",
my cousin and I sent to my room to play jazz chords, I
finger along clumsily. He's in college and his dark eyes close, fingers
sliding up and down the frets,
frowning in concentration, cursing quietly at a missed note.
My islander family comes over and prompts impromptu drinking games,
"I'm not looking, I saw nothing",
I lick a bit of vanilla ***** from my mother's shot glass,
alcohol becomes a family affair, it
takes away the danger and the stigma and throws a friendly, lovely
light on a vice.
It's raining, it's cold,
islanders do not belong on a Kansas porch smoking cigarettes in the dark rain.
I light candles on the wall.
They all outlast their welcome, between four and a half hours of transition
from uncomfortable "i don't remember your name", put on the spot,
only-child-becomes-one-of-several to
discussing baby names and family gossip, they
all wrap up their food slaved over at nine am, they
all troop out the door, they
take their coats, they
leave their wide smiles with us until next time.
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 2:16 AM UTC
undress the frets and peel the strings, pulled as oxymoron through chord progressions
hermetic code and the 8-fold path swim indefinitely within concept of illusion
concept
of
illusion
trick question.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 2:03 PM UTC
*Let loneliness' tears explode and be transformed into thousand moaning stars tonight,
As...
My universe whips with meteors...
Slashing the earth's flesh,
with scorching ***** of fire.
My universe cries an august rain...
Leaving the earth in deep waters,
breathless, it won't survive.
My universe hurls hails...
Crashing the earth's face.
My universe whispers comets...
Making the earth sigh with fiery passion.
My universe frets in pain...
Deafening sound echoes
in earth's hollow station.
That...
My universe in my arms is collapsing...
And I,
the earth, am dying with him.*
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 10:53 AM UTC
She paints herself, to better blend in;
She pampers and softens,
she plans all the right moves.
She frets, ruffling her dusty feathers,
so battered and dull, the sheen lost
to empty restless nights alone;
alone and growing cold in the night.
She panics, blood rushing in waves,
crashing against her organs,
breath blown like strong wind.
She picks her clothes,
covers herself in shrouds;
she knows you will be looking.
She knows you will map her out;
the rivers and channels that create her landscape.
She paces, wondering if she will be
enough for you.
She only wants to be what you desire.
She wants to be the last thing you see
before you fall into sleep;
the memory you search for in your dreams.
She only yearns to have you coming back;
wishing to see more of her.
Be with her.
Love her.
Is this what we must do?
Morph into another, less wholesome,
creation of ourselves
to secure love and emotion?
How many forms can we take?
Is this just going to be a
battle;
a raging brutal clash of
shape-shifting and anxiety?
Are we just going to tally
the numbers of different self
we can create walking out
of bloodied bedrooms?
The scars of each transformation
hiding on secret patches of skin.
I’m running out of choices…
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 6:09 AM UTC
As you slid your fingers
across the frets
your voice lingered
inside my head
Intoxicating me
Making me forget
everything you had said-
the words that once stung,
the wounds that ceased to heal
all the things
that you said you couldn't feel.
It all seemed false
when you sang of love
with devotion
that you could never give to me
That was when it hit me
It wasn't me you loved,
It was her
Your first guitar
named Valerie.
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 11:50 AM UTC
Night,
and there is nothing more fragile
than this fever, an opus
of guitars swelling with song
and water, fluent
as the nocturnes are tuned
to the lower scale and strings vibrate deep within
the marrow as they ascend,
the soul blowing glass,
and filling the lungs
with a long slow taper of light, streaming
as fingers are brought to bear on frets
covered in hoarfrost,
and stray hair is pushed back from countenance,
to reveal the fractions of fire caught upon iris
there come slow indulgences,
and forgotten things,
to twine the body
in banners of winter silk,
scarves about the wrists, roped
in tethers and these feathers
of night-blooming jasmine
hang in long strands of pearl,
from my temple, teal threads of opal
and heather braids twine
the tone, the time
is not all poems
upon a blank page or songs
to coo the concert of souls
muted in chambers acoustically
formed of minutes, stolen in a glance,
at glimpse of skin or the tender touch
of cheek as eyes brim
soul-filled to overflow,
nocturnal blends the silent pause
between movements upon a page
where there is room for words,
though never found ,but in gesture
and margin's note that lays soft upon the tongue,
behind lips suited for sighs
these lost manuscripts begin
a long hand of notes held whole
Let the music play again,
its plea, eternal,
my love, please
do not forget how to preserve me,
for this is night,
and it is fragile....
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 6:54 AM UTC
Cool kid euphoria with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on is what we all are in the basement of the 50’s house.
Our phones blowing up while we sip whiskey and wine.
Trying to get the attention of the cars on the main road
By handstanding and flashing and cheersing our beers
And we receive our victorious honks.
Guitar clock radio with numbers around the fretboard and Sir Paul smiling and crooked, acid-trippin’ guitarist/violinist/celloist looking product of orange and gold look down upon as our patron saints.
Swingin’ low, Sweet Chariot words stares up at me from the 70’s floral carpet.
Ralph Stanley and Eric Clapton singing solos and duets in my head keep me company as the boys play and figure out key changes.
Painted screen hiding the Etta James microphone stands forgotten in the corner—
As I take in the teals and roses and golds.
Give me a heart shaped box where I can store my love
I fly so high in the world above
I’ll come back down eventually.
Lava lamped water stain engulfs the ceiling. As fingers go up frets
And they go down frets
And they go up frets
And they go down frets.
As you don’t enunciate when you sing.
We all mourn our fallen brethren, the base of the telecaster with no strings and no head and it weeps silently from its place on the water pipes, hearing his cousins WAAAIIIIILLLLLL.
As Cool kid euphoria is created with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on in the basement of the 50’s house.
We work all day so we can drink all night
Getting high off the drug that is each other
Chain-smoking Pall Malls like it’s our job
Listening to oldies as we shoot the eight ball in the corner pocket.
Garden tools and Lawn Mower parts as a sweet, creepy décor in the dank basement
As we breathe in mold and dust and cigarette smoke.
We are gloriously young.
So **** off.
We still think we can change the world.
Not through politics or through fear or by means of war
But by doing just enough to get by and loving everybody for who they are, even the parts or religions or particular ways of life we don’t like,
Because people aren’t what they do or what they believe
They’re who they are.
We still think we can change the world
And Maybe one day, we will
But for now
We’ll just be here,
In the basement of the 50’s house with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on.
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:38 AM UTC
Vibes caught
static between
snares
hips swinging
searching for music
that played their truth.
The bass line
wasn’t just music
it was breath
pulling ribs apart
to let
the rhythm in
Fingers slid down
necks like frets
pressing
into chords
that hummed notes
down thighs
in time
Wanting
too blow
saxophones
Spitting all over
the reed
Jazz
isn’t something
you hear
it’s something
that happens
to you
cymbal crashed
piano keys
Play confessions
no hymn
would dare too
black and white blending
spilled burbon over
smoke-stained wood
Feet tapping
out codes no one
else could decipher
syncopated riff
breaking patterns
breaking rules
The off beat
gospel you
couldn’t write down.
The room
swayed with them
walls leaning in
leaning closer
to the crescendo
the saxophone
came in
it was a third hand
tracing lines
down spines
nobody dared
to blow before.
This is jazz:
argument
turned
foreplay
rough pull
dissonance
before harmony
slips in
like a satin sheets
you weren’t ready for.
Hands hit bodies
like drumsticks
slap rolling
inhale percussion
moaning muted horn solo
They weren’t just
feeling the music;
they were
becoming it
beating out solos
on each other’s skin.
The sweat smelled
like vinyl records
warm grooves
pressed
into the air
spinning
slow spins
catching sparks
needle skating over scars
was a minor chord
that somehow
still felt major.
learning
how to recognize itself.
Passion spilling out
her mouth
scotch over his
mahogany wood
The rimshot
of her sigh
Improvision
improvisation
of his kiss
Scatting sound
echoing
from lips
His horn
hit her high note
one that split
the room in half
she leaned closer
saying
“Do you hear that?”
But he wasn’t listening
to the music anymore.
He was listening
to her pulse
that slick
heartbeat drumming
solo against
his wrist.
This is what
jazz does
You don’t
just play
It consumes.
becomes the air
the walls
sweat
the skin
It’s the music
you don’t hear
but feel
right there
in the space
where your ribs
can’t hold
the notes.
Jazz
doesn’t end
it just fades
into the background
waiting for you
to join again
Nov 25, 2024
Nov 25, 2024 at 7:13 AM UTC