"harmonies" poems
"But what if we're wrong?"
It was silent
But her thoughts echoed around in my head as we laid on top of her pickup truck
I swatted at the eighteenth mosquito chewing on my leg
I don't want this to be love
We were tangled up in the acoustic music they play on the radio on Sunday mornings
She was trying to dream up something clever to write about
And I was pretending I could learn to play guitar through osmosis,
As if blending myself in with the harmonies, finding her in every lyric, and sheer willpower would give me wings or at least magic guitar hands
She set the alarm, checked it over and over
She was not going to be late for her first day
I told her I'd be asleep when she got home, she told me she knew
I told her to wake me up
I wasn't looking for perfect
Perfect really only applies in first year physics courses
After that, we learn to fall in love with "rough around the edges" or "unique" or "unfinished"
As if their life is a puzzle that we need to complete
Just so you know, it isn't
She bought me breakfast and dropped me off
She used to tell me she loved me, but I know she didn't
She does now, so she doesn't have to say it anymore
When I said, "love," before, I didn't really mean it
Not like I mean loving the garden on the balcony of her apartment or thunderstorms in May
Even if I was a puzzle that she completed (and I'm not saying that I am), we didn't need any glue to fit perfectly
May 27, 2018
May 27, 2018 at 9:17 PM UTC
We went wild
when all the stars came out.
We went wild
when all the flowers burst apart.
We ran across the earth barefoot
and with our electric hearts,
beating to the harmonies of nature.
There isn't anything that I desire
but the satisfaction that freedom offers.
Wrapped up in rays from the sun,
I celebrate myself,
while we sing only of glee.
You cleaned my soul
and showed me how to grow with each spring.
You pushed me through the winters
until the days when all life was reborn.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 8:25 PM UTC
Friendship
Friendship is not a jewel or a coin or a gift
Jewels and coins and gifts don’t die
Friendship is not a flower or blown glass;
Friendship is not fragile
Friendship is not a poem or a melody
Because friendship cannot be forgotten
Friendship is a symphony
With grand overtures
Melodic harmonies
and unforgettable phrases
punctuated
by
Attacking staccatos
Vibrant arpeggios
then peaceful interludes
And sometimes
rests
Followed by thoughtful segues
All held together by a coherent structure
called
Respect
Apr 11, 2021
Apr 11, 2021 at 8:55 PM UTC
In the Midnight heaven's burning
Through the ethereal deeps afar
Once I watch'd with restless yearning
An alluring aureate star;
Ev'ry eve aloft returning
Gleaming nigh the Arctic Car.
Mystic waves of beauty blended
With the gorgeous golden rays
Phantasies of bliss descended
In a myrrh'd Elysian haze.
In the lyre-born chords extended
Harmonies of Lydian lays.
And (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,
Where the free and blessed dwell,
And each moment bears a treasure,
Freighted with the lotos-spell,
And there floats a liquid measure
From the lute of Israfel.
There (I told myself) were shining
Worlds of happiness unknown,
Peace and Innocence entwining
By the Crowned Virtue's throne;
Men of light, their thoughts refining
Purer, fairer, than my own.
Thus I mus'd when o'er the vision
Crept a red delirious change;
Hope dissolving to derision,
Beauty to distortion strange;
Hymnic chords in weird collision,
Spectral sights in endless range….
Crimson burn'd the star of madness
As behind the beams I peer'd;
All was woe that seem'd but gladness
Ere my gaze with Truth was sear'd;
Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness,
Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd….
Now I know the fiendish fable
The the golden glitter bore;
Now I shun the spangled sable
That I watch'd and lov'd before;
But the horror, set and stable,
Haunts my soul forevermore!
13.2k
breathing the turquoise like lavender,
and sipping the blue summer.
bitter cold clouds glide and morph lava lather,
floating whispers cut by sweet pineapple sunshine.
soon, a moment, now
rhythms ripple the sky like skipping stones
we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.
cobalt bass rumbles the earth hungry,
pumps the air with springing spirals
pushing and pulling the senses,
reverberating through cells.
heavy mud humming, stomping
echoes through our atoms dizzy;
balancing tuned body to innate electricity
the fizz of circulating lemonade energy.
we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.
strawberry melodies spilling ribbons,
dolphin leaps of the spaces inbetween beats,
lines of colours overlapping,
colliding, mixing, merging, blending
in with the forest.
washing over souls the life fire sparkles
like a clear water cleansing harmonies,
sound waves crashing against inertia.
phosphorescent glow of re-charged love
for the world, for being, animation
flowing through burnt smoky ashes
of sapphire charcoal skies;
dimmed radiation of chlorophyll emerald days.
the smell of salt, dry bark, fluffy carbon mists,
trembling lights softening the eyes'
grip on outlines, loosening lies.
watching the cycles of patterns
tumbling colours through a mill rotating,
and the silence of listening
when the music comes to an end.
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 8:19 PM UTC
I use technology to take me to a time when it only half-existed. In a blue-shell room of mega-pixel photographs and rolling news feeds, I can put on my headphones and disappear into an instrumental Sunday.
There are stamp collectors making their lazy way over beaten roads and disused railways. 'Surrender' only means to fall asleep and to leave your book as a hut on your bedside table. Where war may still go on and on,
but at least you don't have to hear about it. Show me the place where pine-cones fall and women stare across the river. Where coffee is for taste, and not self-medication. I want to walk bare-foot and feel thorns
toughen my heels, infect my blood with Earth or God or Any Other Name. We will **** in the bushes, singing those fragments of Leonard Cohen lyrics that we can still remember from times spent smoking in my room.
I can almost feel that pointless happiness. That location in a canopy to retreat when the bills are due, when the walls needs re-painting. When the neighbour strangles puppies and all you do is complain about the time.
I use new music set to old sounds: freed slaves living in the cross-hairs of tradition. White lovers breaking their hearts over guitar strings and harmonies, always a semi-tone apart. I find your hair on my pillow.
There is no technology in the world to distract me from that.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 6:29 PM UTC
I believe it was the sawdust of summer when I found your voice in a shadow of a song it reminded me of my past hurt. You sang so beautifully of lilacs and photogenic water, you build harmonies powerful enough to save angels in a storm.
Quickly I caught on and held tight to your butterflies you called lyrics. You spoke of love like you had a doctrine in it. I thought for men love was a learning curve. You proved me wrong. You did not just create music and magic you birth colors out of sound and called them stories.
You blurred the lines between reality and fantasy. I bet your music is similar to the way God speaks. I bet you discovered a guitar inside of a black deity and the piano inside of a white devil's broken heart.
Prince, I bet you can play anything even the fossils of flowers.
Your music is an endless drug, a purple high. Listening to you made me feel like all four seasons cuddled up with a kiss.
Tell me when did you get tired of playing love songs?
When did balancing the moon and a microphone become all too much for you? Who choked the life out of your vocal chords? **** I would give almost anything to hear you live again! To wear your songs in my ears like Heirlooms. Oh Wait, I think I get it. Is this how you go beyond means of self to teach us dead silence is music too?
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 9:11 AM UTC
Profound, that he lost his sight.
He couldn't get the harmonies to blend quite right,
So he gave up seeing,
For music was the life and the fiber in his being.
He didn't need another soul
To change his note from half to whole,
For he had something else to hold,
And music couldn't make his spirit old.
So, he wed the chord, he played the piece,
And he dubbed musicality the worst disease.
Funny that a musical obsession
Would correspond with loneliness at life's discretion.
--Emily Rutledge
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 12:24 PM UTC
why a poet?
because a poet
hears the words
which sing the
purest harmonies
because a poet
paints their portraits
in pastels
of phrases
because a poet
dances their agonies
into leaps of faith
and pirouettes
of passion
because a poet
sees
the beauty
in the commonplace
and captures
the moment
in a snapshot
of ink and white
because a bloodless world
cuts itself
a thousand times
and the poet bleeds
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 7:07 PM UTC
Not an enigmatic smile
Like the constipated, condescending smirk
Adorning, and inexplicably adored, on the Mona Lisa's smug face;
But a smile to justify God's existence;
A smile that, when dazzlingly bestowed
Upon one fortunate soul, caught rabbit-like in its
Wondrous radiance, infinitesimally, and cumulatively,
Increases the World's joy. Where every living thing -
Whatever exists on the planet, imperceptibly hums
To a new, more celestial pitch -
An effervescent vibration celebrating Life's mysteries:
A reason for existence.
It's a smile to make an Alchemist cry -
Turning a leaden heart to gold in an instant.
It's a smile to make a mediocre poet struggle
To articulate an adequate description
Using all the hyperbole, simile and metaphor at his limited disposal.
Inestimably more brilliant, and more valuable,
Than the most flawless diamond ever found -
And, perhaps, just as rare.
Thankfully, a renewable resource,
Enabled to enlighten and heat
The recesses of any beneficiary's
Heart and invigorate their soul.
Helen may have caused a thousand ships to sail,
Destroying a nation as a consequence;
And Cleopatra nearly caused the collapse of an Empire;
But Tao's smile, unleashed in all its glory
Could melt the Antarctic ice-sheet -
Drowning us all in its magnificence.
Mayan's have a myth that states such a smile
Only comes around once every twelve thousand years,
In the Great Galactic turning.
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
Is often mistakenly considered to concern gravity,
But is, in fact, concerned with one's relative position
To Tao's smile - an inescapable vortex of pleasure.
No music conceived of the fabled Celestial Spheres
Compares to the silent, ethereal harmonies tattooing my heart
Whenever, beacon-like, that smile flashes fleetingly in my direction.
And Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has not a Quantum core,
But revolves around the statistical uncertainty of being blessed
With the ephemeral thrill of a benign grim.
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 9:49 AM UTC
Your colors are so heavy, how dare I, I cannot sleep. Years inundated under, through skin coils, marigold fields. Yellow crocuses, orange California poppies. Moors of cattle ranchers, yokes of oxen. Plasticine uber-confidence, silky white-skinned testubular thrice people harmonies. Blisses of contagion, contagious bliss. Wrists and incisors, tying down in a bedroom, waking up to live harps and choruses. You dance like you're so alive, but I'm so alive I can't dance. Or breathe. Or knead my fists of earthen wears, or sell my soul completely. I drove off a cliff last night, but the four foot fall ended neatly. The plateau authors my chance to sew my bright, beyond- my fortunes. But the hour before I fall asleep, seems to be the greatest torture.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:54 AM UTC
My feet sweat, my shoulders burn
But I am indifferent.
Nature plays around me.
Close your eyes. The last thing you see
is a white butterfly dance past the tree-line
into oblivion blue.
Bush leaves crackle above you in branches
and below you, let loose through brittle grass.
A light wind conducts a symphony in which
Each shrub plays a part.
Each dry branch, kindling ready to explode,
Itching to snap its dangerously perfect note.
Thorns whistle sharply - reeds hiss and hum.
Every breeze is a clown, taking up instruments
And jostling melodies to play all at once.
The grass rushes to its queue, dry as a bone.
Leaves follow behind in vague harmonies.
I wait on the edge of an eventful storm.
The sky is blue.
A storm of events - something big,
Behind the horizon, behind the mirage.
A rhino.
A microlite .
Electric fences, purring.
A wan nation celebrates, then groans behind the hills.
Natures orchestra sings to no one in particular
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 2:21 PM UTC
i want to play a piano
i want to feel my fingers slide down the keys
i want to swirl myself in melodies no one’s ever heard
i want to engulf myself in harmonies
angels sing their children to sleep
i want my fingers to dance on black keys
like ballet dancers twirling their tiptoes
i want to feel like satin unwinding
like champagne bubbling
i want to dance in the moonlight
with nothing but a grand piano
and my fingers
nimbly picking each key
ever so softly
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 10:23 PM UTC
A shallow breath,
A gentle tone,
Sustained,
Ringing out,
Calling the trees,
Whose ears bend to hear,
Subtle harmonies,
Growing,
Calling the hills,
Whose eyes close to hear,
More clearly,
The song,
Calling the earth,
Who stirs the sleeping seeds,
So they too,
Can hear,
The calling chimes,
Asking the world to smile,
As they resonate,
So easily,
And sing their metallic song.
Jan 24, 2015
Jan 24, 2015 at 4:00 AM UTC
The nightingale is titillating;
its songs shiver down my spine
while listening to its melodious voice;
hearing the pitch-perfect harmonies,
is as calming as the summer sea
I watch the nightingale, perfectly perched on the tree
whispering sweet sounds of seduction
beckoning to her mate
its voice echoes throughout the night
Filling the eeriness of the pitch-black sky
My own nightingale, won't you sing to me?
Your voice is my sanity,
soft-spoken and light, solace rests in your songs,
It covers me like a blanket,
shielding me from all harm
Safe and sound in your presence
captured by those gentle brown eyes
your peace is like the moon,
Resting still in the dark
But always following around
My nightingale sings me to sleep
as the sky changes from dusk to night
the sweet little notes caress my ears
while I gently close my eyes
dreaming to her lovely lullaby
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 11:30 AM UTC
_Tendrils of drowsy pleasure entice and hypnotise,
As daybreak storms; a rapturous collision,
Of distorted cadences and scintillating harmonies,
Between discarded blue-sky sheets._
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 5:13 PM UTC
(October 17th, 2013, I think is when I wrote this.)
There aren’t many things
that I’m good at.
I have bad grades.
I’m aware of this, but they
still insist on shouting as if
three letter F’s
determine my worth
as well as my ability.
I’m not athletic,
never been remotely decent
at sports,
picked last for soccer,
football, basketball,
and everything else,
tried to do parkour once-
however,
that hope quickly dissolved
when I discovered
that it was still nerve-wracking
for me to climb a fence.
(One of the many gifts
that comes with a severe
lack of coordination.)
I’m not a quiet person.
I don’t know
how to hold my tongue
most of the time.
So when my father’s paycheck
is cut shorter and shorter,
when he makes little enough as it is,
my stay-at-home mother
fighting her demons of
the severe depression and anxiety
that she passed down to me
as well as her (auditory) hallucinations,
her BPD,
her physical disabilities,
not making a paycheck at all,
and my school supplies
consist of 50-cent notebooks
that fall apart,
and 75-cent pens,
I get a little… “upset”.
I’ve played guitar for three years.
Sometimes, it’s what I’m best at,
playing strings of notes
and minor chords
that come together to form
beautiful harmonies-
but more often than not,
every note is sour…
Another thing I’m not good at.
But I am a writer.
People don’t pay attention
to teenagers, they say
We’re so full of ourselves,
We think we’re so important,
they say
We need to communicate,
but when we try
all they hear
is whining, and complaining.
Teenagers telling their friends
in passing conversation
that they’re suicidal,
that they hurt themselves,
just to see who will notice-
who will listen-
and of course, no one does.
Nobody notices that
teenagers are the voice
of our generation,
and our generation,
as such,
is royally ******
because nobody pays attention.
There aren’t many things
that I’m good at.
But I am a writer.
And I have
a voice,
a pen…
And paper torn
from a 50-cent notebook.
Oct 31, 2014
Oct 31, 2014 at 1:35 PM UTC
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree,
Arched ceilings and Mother’s whisper Tetelestai
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
Black preaching robes saying Grace is for free,
Now pass the gold plate so the Church can supply,
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree.
Regenerated through love-on this we agree,
Shouting Hymn 22 children’s voices blend high,
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
Drunkards and Deacons with Thou and with Thee,
Starched shirts and white pearls all standing by,
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree.
Released from all of our chafe and debris,
With roars of repentance and relief we reply,
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
I am whole I am new through His ministry,
I know I can never this truth deny.
Soft wooden pews and the white dogwood tree.
Making surprise harmonies with the sinner beside me.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 11:40 PM UTC
A dream once was had-- for two to be equal,
For this is the land of the free,
Free for you; free for me.
Often we hide our faces, as if we were the ones shamed.
Instead of standing up with another,
Repelling awful names.
Silence has a power, often more than sound.
Silence tunes your true voice,
Silence shakes the ground.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
Young students go to school, all shades of different skin.
We all threw rocks and names,
Wanting equality was their sin.
Did it matter? Their race was who they were.
A few rose voices,
Others’ silences were fists furled.
What does it matter, of what color their skin?
Here comes another battle.
Here it comes again.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
If one was gay, would he not be a being?
Should you let others mock?
Does silence stop the grieving?
No, the pain is still there, still loud.
The silence is louder.
Silence is all around.
The names, the hate, all can be repressed.
Silence is the fermata.
Silence has the stress.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
What is the solution, to this lack of sound?
Simple.
Make it loud.
A word of hope, ringing upon new ears.
A word of sympathy,
Erasing all the fear.
A smile, a hug, a song, a dream,
All to be had,
All to be seen.
Shout against repression, against hate.
For we are all equal,
All the same final fate.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
Stand together, as one. Make the stand.
Stop silence, create music,
Ring it through the land.
With your words create harmony, create rhyme.
Create thirds and fifths,
Stronger than the flow of time.
Why must we stand alone? Aren’t we all brothers?
Did our ancestors fight?
Protecting our dear mother?
Hand in hand we’ll rise, voices speak as one.
Cruelness and evil gone,
Silence on the run.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
If we do not help each other, then who will assist?
Together we will rise,
Or fall together into the abyss.
Gay or straight, or be it black or white,
Whether you believe in god,
We’re all human, right?
We all feel, we all hear and see.
We can all make words,
We all breathe.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
So why must we be made different, called by our opinions or race?
Why must we be judged,
Simply by our face?
No more, I shout. No more the hate.
No more discrimination.
This is our fate.
No more injustice, social and the silence.
No more acts of anger.
No more senseless violence.
Let brothers protect brothers, let friends be friends,
For we are only human.
The same mortal end.
Let sisters love their sisters, let strangers be strangers no more.
For we are only human.
Our heart is our core.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
I will stand alone, if that is what it takes.
I will raise my voice,
Singing with quick haste.
I will be the difference, the smile to the weak.
I will help protect,
Helping shield the meek.
I will celebrate the differences, that make you and me.
I will turn the lock,
My voice will be the key.
Soon my friends will join, creating a choir of light,
Singing against the hate,
Harmonies strike the night.
Silence will not be my tool, silence is not my friend.
I will make my voice count.
I will make this hate end.
Silence is the foe, when words need to be said.
Silence is the killer.
Silence marks the dead.
Dec 9, 2012
Dec 9, 2012 at 8:54 PM UTC
Your touch closes my eyes
I let your words traumatise my mind
Your breath dampens my skin,
Provoking apocalyptic thoughts from within
The trickle of your touch
Is eating at my mind,
I keep your desires fed,
Thirst and hatred intertwined
Disrupting my insides
My lips escape discordant harmonies,
As in you I confide,
That the truth's foreign to my eyes
You remain my fixation
A sinister hallucination
Occurrences of formination
Are my self-rehabilitation
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
Parenting
organizing the day,
while the baby room adjacent
makes dreaming rock n' roll noises
siren calls to lay in bed,
semi-alert, on guard duty,
scheming about dis n' dat,
you are sleeping, dreaming,
wide awake seeing,
multitasking eyes closed simultaneously.
lesser of a poet, more a notate-er,
list keeper, note taker,
arguing with yourself inside the head,
actually feeling the thoughts
coursing, lurking, seeing both sides now,
parentally, washing the dishes
of the hours and years ahead.
while the woman-mother
makes her soprano dreaming noises,
you laugh at the orchestra of
******* sighing somnolent noises,
a cadenza of love dancing in your
irresistible wide awake dreams.
paying the bills, lying in the dark,
you wonder-worry about the agenda
unknown that will overgrow you,
fast creeping up the grain of your skin,
ivy on stone skin walls.
lala lala
you borrow baby's lullaby,
yourself calming,
keeping time, silly rhyming,
organizing the days ahead
in you head, while,
recording the harmonies of sensory inputs.
the dark provides the cloak
where you alone
feel and hear the worry and laugh lines knitting
into a single stitch of parenting.
1/20/2013
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
Your music is sensual, dark and languid
Mysterious and **** hypnotic and sultry
The slow tempo and rumbling bass drums are a heavenly mix
I close my eyes and let the forlorn echoes immerse me
In a sea of falsetto vocals and stuttering percussions
Your music is enigmatic, puzzling and seductive
Pacifying and troubling, calming and cinematic
Your champagne crooning is a movie in itself
Telling me the tales of a gloomy sex-infused hangover life
And it connects to the depths of my soul
Even though I've never experienced it
Narcotized slow jams filled with samples of punk and rock
Transports me to an actual dream world
Your subtly crafted harmonies and beats are celestial
And your lyrics a painkiller
That numbs the wounds in my soul and takes me higher...
Your voice is R&B; but your lyrics are ***** rap
You take such vile words and turn them into something beautiful
and I adore that.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 4:02 PM UTC
his teeth marked my thighs like love letters written in braille. lightly, running my fingers through his hair like guitar strings and moaning harmonies through my lips. I swear, I could feel earthquakes erupting inside me as hot lava danced down my skin.
Dec 18, 2015
Dec 18, 2015 at 1:21 PM UTC
Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air,
And all our rarer, better, truer self
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better, -- saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love, --
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever. This is life to come, --
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, -- be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
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