"glissando" poems
The smell of a spring rain
settling on the earth
is the smell of life anew.
At the window, I sit with a book,
both cracked,
cooled by the alfresco air seeping through,
and tiny droplets glissando down the pane.
The pitter-patter of a soft rain
falling to the parched earth
is the sound of life replenished.
At the rain's offset, I leap from my chair,
exiting the front door,
to saunter through the lush green pastures
that linger outside the library's confines.
How green the trees appear, and the grass--
how rich the stalks of the trees,
their boughs with budding leaves quenched,
glistening in the sun.
I even enjoy the scent coming off the once arid pavement--
it is the smell of the earth,
freed from its impedance,
rising above the stifling asphalt.
I smell the life that lingers beneath,
and the dull metallic tinfoil taste of the pavement
fills my open nostrils--
It is pleasant, though a little less so, than the ambrosial landscape.
I inhale ever so deeply,
relishing my favorite part of spring,
in the offset of a warm afternoon rain on a brisk day,
sauntering through the wood-laden trails on worn brick paths,
to the paved parking lot where my car awaits--
delineated in a filmy layer of mired pollen residue.
It needed a wash anyways.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 1:34 PM UTC
Hugging you,
My hand making a glissando
along your hair.
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 10:44 PM UTC
Her touch, a crescendo, our bodies harmonizing, sound journey.
Heartstrings vibrating in tune, passion bringing, sound journey.
Empty concert hall, without her, echoes in the void.
Mind's dulcimer weaves memories, drifting, sound journey.
Like two violins our bodies now begin a sweet duet.
Our passion a crescendo forever building, sound journey
Fingers tracing landscapes of desire, soft curves exploring.
Our breath, a soft flute, seeks the hidden embers burning, sound journey
Her body a living instrument, vibrations of pure sound.
Powerless, I must follow the maestro's commanding, sound journey
Like a master perfumer, our love's fragrance ages gracefully.
Chords of vintage cello bowing passion, resonating, sound journey
Her lips, a harp's lush glissando, heartbeats suspended.
A honeyed kiss, notes lingering; in silence orchestrating, sound journey
On celestial strings; notes drift in the cosmos; starlight whispers.
Our souls forever stardust on windstrings, meditating, sound journey.
In Gaia's Soothing Haven, our hearts forever on love’s journey.
Notes of desire linger softly, sonnets drift on our sighs.
Jan 14, 2025
Jan 14, 2025 at 5:59 PM UTC
I’ve begun thinking
In terms of music.
We are a decrescendo,
Falling from forte
To pianissimo
As the clock ticks
It’s rhythmic warning.
Your voice is always
In crescendo,
A cello when you laugh,
Mournful viola for those moments
Your strings are wound
Too tightly.
The way your fingers
Glissando across my rib cage,
Playing con amore upon my skin.
You taste like a symphony,
Brass and woodwind,
An opus on my lips.
Some days
You make me forget
How playing someone
Can be bad.
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 12:02 PM UTC
Oh, hello there.
I managed to slip away from my previous adventure,
With the knight and his beloved.
My beloved, too;
I suppose.
I've stumbled upon a peculiar thing, though.
An olive tree,
In the midst of this lush underbrush.
It's quite twee,
If I do say so myself.
Although I'm more interested in the treasure below.
A pristine white glows beneath.
I twiddle with the branches a little to find a lovely treasure.
I sit down,
Outstretched my fingers towards the snow,
And carefully pluck at it,
Delicately brushing along the olives in the midst
Of my glissando.
Yohan Heineken, I believe.
A baroque composer.
My thoughts fluidly sailing as the leaves of the tree rustle,
And the snow echos as more olives fall upon it.
Like...an orchestra.
The olives falling unto the porcelain, I mean.
What a beautiful melody it creates,
And my fingers magically gloss along the porcelain,
Carefully molding the remaining olives into the crevices my fingers have made.
Oh dear, I've become too passionate for this!
I carry on anyways, 3rd Movement and all.
The Tempest...
A lovely play by Shakespeare & a dazzling story told by Beethoven.
Or simply a way to express my current emotions.
The wind carried the melody...
...to the ears of the waking princess.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 3:56 AM UTC
Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower
Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour:
At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly . . .
The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones.
We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky.
We are like music, each voice of it pursuing
A golden separate dream, remote, persistent,
Climbing to fire, receding to hoarse despair.
What do you whisper, brother? What do you tell me? . . .
We pass each other, are lost, and do not care.
One mounts up to beauty, serenely singing,
Forgetful of the steps that cry behind him;
One drifts slowly down from a waking dream.
One, foreseeing, lingers forever unmoving . . .
Upward and downward, past him there, we stream.
One has death in his eyes: and walks more slowly.
Death, among jonquils, told him a freezing secret.
A cloud blows over his eyes, he ponders earth.
He sees in the world a forest of sunlit jonquils:
A slow black poison huddles beneath that mirth.
Death, from street to alley, from door to window,
Cries out his news,--of unplumbed worlds approaching,
Of a cloud of darkness soon to destroy the tower.
But why comes death,--he asks,--in a world so perfect?
Or why the minute's grey in the golden hour?
Music, a sudden glissando, sinister, troubled,
A drift of wind-torn petals, before him passes
Down jangled streets, and dies.
The bodies of old and young, of maimed and lovely,
Are slowly borne to earth, with a dirge of cries.
Down cobbled streets they come; down huddled stairways;
Through silent halls; through carven golden doorways;
From freezing rooms as bare as rock.
The curtains are closed across deserted windows.
Earth streams out of the shovel; the pebbles knock.
Mary, whose hands rejoiced to move in sunlight;
Silent Elaine; grave Anne, who sang so clearly;
Fugitive Helen, who loved and walked alone;
Miriam too soon dead, darkly remembered;
Childless Ruth, who sorrowed, but could not atone;
Jean, whose laughter flashed over depths of terror,
And Eloise, who desired to love but dared not;
Doris, who turned alone to the dark and cried,--
They are blown away like windflung chords of music,
They drift away; the sudden music has died.
And one, with death in his eyes, comes walking slowly
And sees the shadow of death in many faces,
And thinks the world is strange.
He desires immortal music and spring forever,
And beauty that knows no change.
1.6k
They snore in turn: a soft antiphony
of hoarse vibrations, left, a dull Darth Vader,
and right, though sometimes slipping off the radar,
a tremolando shudder. Stiff, uneven,
a third threads in a slow polyphony,
divisions on a ground that swell or fade, or
pause, then unexpectedly cascade, a
purred glissando, an epiphany
of coarse cadenzas. Soon an overwhelming
sadness percolates from other realms
where yellow stains an ocean’s perfect white
and who can say how many hours to go
till, rallentando, pianissimo,
the music is dissolved into the night.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 4:21 PM UTC
The hollow of the cheek, rosy yet
Maplewood, quiet, yet stirring
breathless against the pale of the thigh
Eyes flicker in eighths upward touch secret blue
Hers is the downbeat of his coronary bolero
He, the maestro for her skyward glissando-
the unspoken, unbroken fermata
in the dying wash of sound
in the instant before the applause.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
Piano, piano, soft as moonlight
silken fingers on ivory skin. Glissando --
run your hand up my thigh
plucking every string. Arco, arco.
Softly, softly, the clarinets breath in, breath out
arms envelop me in the tune up,
four notes each fifths apart. Your voice
chimes lovely, the conductor flicks start.
A symphony, a symphony, a whole opera
house inside this bed. Observe me through
small binoculars, roll back your eyes into your head.
Violins slow crescendo, your sigh
an answering phrase from the cello,
listen to the tuba and the piccolo
and the mounting tension. Crescendo, crescendo,
forte, forte. Presto boy, presto. Ritornello.
Fin. Dream with me. Belissimo.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 7:30 PM UTC
Take a look at all of you down there
So sure of yourselves
So full of the hustle-bustle of life itself
Never stopping to see what could be
Potentially the greatest things of your lives
Jutting through the stream like hot knives
No all simply let life pass them by
Not seeing all the things
Looking you in the eye
And will watch even when you lie asleep
For the final time
You all think you’re hot ****
All hit and no miss
No questions
All answers
Obsess with self worth
Convinced that you’re dust with a value
Just because a god you’re not even sure exists told you so
When the urge to **** is gone
What’s the difference between you and the dirt you walk on
You all rise and fall like the waves in the oceans
Like a glissando of smoker coughs
New ideas are thrown against the scoffs and scrutiny
Of those obstinate practitioners of organized ignorance
You are the only one who should impose sanction on your life
Not some pretty news anchor
Who nods at the teleprompter with total belief
You all chase after superficiality like a poor animal
At the snap of some fat fingers
Call yourselves Pavlov’s pet
You fattened the hand that feeds you yourselves
Have you met the total of life’s offer
Have you looked at yourself in the mirror
And not seen cheap narcissism winking back
Self-imposed limits are acceptable to live by
A moratorium of thought is not
You have free speech
Now learn free thought
Explain the intricacies of a fast food drive through
To the children of Darfur
Explain how you didn’t want to learn how to finish your schoolwork
To the little girl who can’t afford to buy pencils for hers
She will tell you with chagrin how she aspires to be a writer and a poet
But can’t afford the books to help her help herself
You express yourself by exerting as little effort
While she isn’t able to put in the effort to express herself
It’s the ultimate irony
Religion ceased to be the ****** of the masses
When it got it reached one-million views
You all can ask where do I get off
And I will only smile and tell you how I am just like you
I watch the same TV
Eat the same food
Wear the same clothes
The only difference is you can be different
And by simply choosing to do so or not is a step in the right direction
You are your own Atlas
Carry your own world
Anyone else is just liable to drop it
Nov 20, 2010
Nov 20, 2010 at 11:38 PM UTC
soft bells, all my soft bells
there, small bird, there
come to me
how nightingale in memory of aloneness does sing
in all its elinesses does ring
here small bird, come into me
how sun crossed by the purple lipstems
goblin flowers sway clasp
brightest horse sun
your glissando moonfilled eyes'
soft bells
there, small bird
there come to me
how nightingale in song does betroth air
and when the Winter's children spring
chorals all death's lies
giggle goblin flowers' hearts
small birds, gather me
come to me I gather your songing furies'
tender quietude's
soft bells, all my
soft bells
Dec 16, 2013
Dec 16, 2013 at 9:13 AM UTC
A wet Spring slept on the porch
Like a damp **** full of Bees
From Atlantis.
A smudge of bacon
in the velvet air of early morn
and couldn’t sleep anyway.
Lightning; you know
the kind that cracks the spine of your bookworm.
with pendulous Thunder and Furious -
Antlers.
My broken robe draped over the wind
Like a baritone glissando sans a piroette
as i plant my hushpuppies in the other stillness
beneath the breeze… like a petulant
peace, ticking like a
Balm.
I sip my coffee
to no applause
Sep 2, 2022
Sep 2, 2022 at 11:18 PM UTC
all in the glory
a skin piece
melting down the sewer eyes
****
Columbus ave.
sickly "light"? grizzly stairs up the bridge
******* on the low stoopway
forget that corner and a glinting nametag, a dancer
stay here and run! don't do it again YES
who bends over in the streets
BAM!
"I wasn't watching I'm sorry"
"Oh, no need honey"
undress me
organic hair pitted down matted in a Tesla
Nikol, Nico
the watchburn and lion's breath purple dangling "in the car again?"
****
not again"
trunkbed aroma hitting
Des Moines!
or was it blue again?
who's sound is closer to the truth and who's taking the first shower?
get naked
I reach down for the stone
I feel the soft at its edges
cigarette soaring!
Waterloo
which of you suckers ruled England last year?
the weekend slowly sleeps
in the bay's gentle red cradle
Mother
fitting quietly
an alleyway above our heads
who?
Edward
a hand raises from the striped automobile
"Hey! **** out of the road!"
Chopin, the glissando with no lost word
the shattered beer bottle of 20 years, antiquity
glow into the sink
washing onward Barton and Lombard
Barton and Lombard
both streets unacting like the other
shards of melting black pavement lying so tight and close, the lovers of suburbia
...
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 6:14 PM UTC
Tightrope strung
too high
above a reckless
orchestra, can’t
find a downbeat:
conductor’s
lost her
ictus, and the
soprano’s slipped off
the descant
stumbling drunken
dotted rhythms
in stepwise
motion just
short of lilting
glissando.
Concertmaster’ll break
a string to
catch the pitch
carry a well-chewed
tune. Good boy.
Don’t
miss the entrance
or you’ll tumble,
ritornello
to double bars and
slide straight down a
spit-slick trombone
tuner. Wouldn’t
even mind if Ms.
Grey-Eyed
French Horn
would sneak a
wink, but
we’ll get no
Picardy third
tonight, just
minor keys
and fully-diminished
encores.
Jan 20, 2020
Jan 20, 2020 at 9:38 PM UTC