"legato" poems
I’m lost in Rome,
all the roads have brought me here.
I’m searching for home,
Holding a picture of it near.
I step into the metronome,
I enter with an identity in my pockets.
I speak to the garden gnome,
He’s asking if I’d like to buy a silver locket.
At a legato tempo,
10. The metronome keeps ticking.
My lips only stay chapped,
Simply because I won’t stop licking them.
“I’m looking for the Lucky Fix.
The Shaved Jaguar told me this is the place.”
The Gnome haggles me up in my face,
“Oh please, I know all the old tricks!
I now control your brain stem.
You have a long way to go! You’ve been trapped!”
At an Allegro tempo;
20. The Metronome keeps tocking.
On the stage,
The Kangaroos are still kick-boxing.
Breaking free of their cage,
The only price is to make you dance.
“I seek to barter for some potions",
They want to know, "So Why have I been cursed?”
The Hooting Owl, offers them a grand notion.
“Keeping thinking that and you might just burst.”
30.The metronome stops on the off-beat, .
“Where is the Lucky Fix?”
I began to grow impatient!
“Don’t you first need your feet?
Your priorities need to be layered bricks.
Your addiction to gratification will lead you to defeat!
You can find the matches in the Fire Station.
I know some of the tricks. That’s a good place to start.”
The Goblins are looking for the heart.
40. With a Presto Tempo
You must reset the Metronome.
TJW 2013
.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 12:37 PM UTC
My ***** Lover
Irrationality always wins
Chicago is aspirated beast
Braggart forced laugh
I had a vision but I have no vision
Dreamed I was making out with a woman
Who had long stretchy pink octopus tentacles
Sedulously legato ephemera
Growing from external rim of ******
Sobriquet inimical desiccation
One tentacle wrapped around and tickled
Diurnal nugatory verisimilitude
While other squeezed testicles
What was I talking about, oh yes
Everything got out of hand
Expect unthinkable gusting winds
To huff puff blow house down
Filthy rotten scoundrel but
Started out so sweet
Inchoate caliphate apocryphal
Wish I had her gift
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 11:13 AM UTC
When specks of ash float on the breath of the last great tree,
When the heat Scorches the final blade of grass to dust,
When the sun dares to rise again,
We will prevail.
When the ocean’s great white waves blow back black,
When the last leaf sways down to its final resting place,
When the clouds seem to always cry,
We will rise.
When the breeze whispers it's melodious secrets,
When the earth stops beating the drum of its heart,
When the water’s legato rhythm becomes jagged,
When the fire eats up everything that is left,
We will feast.
We will devour the last of mankind.
We will peel skin,
We will pick nails,
We will lick the very fingers that once fed us.
Unforgiving,
We take the young.
Heartless,
We watch them burn.
Happily,
We yearn for more.
In the end,
I rise to take my throne.
Stepping on empty skulls,
Snapping, cracking, and
Creaking to sit upon the empty wasteland of bones.
I smile,
Sitting back to admire my creation.
The birth of something new.
A perfect melody built just for you,
And this time, you better sing.
Dec 5, 2019
Dec 5, 2019 at 11:47 AM UTC
Arcane rumblings bellow out from the infrastructure.
The secrets swell out from the wealthy infidels. Their water has broken.
The top-hat henchmen gather their whiskers.
Stuttering shock and leaking their whispers,
vulcan-loud.
The wise old casualties know all of what’s to come,
so they pack their sacks with their old guns
to fortify their army of one.
The news skips the billions of ignorant families
condemning daughters and sons to an army of none.
The first bullets abandon their barrels,
the kick-off to pain, from poise.
Eager to byte flesh, fur, faith,
eager to make some godawful noise.
The following blasts are a metallic symphony
Quickly looming, swooning,
booming into cacophony
in shrill-major.
Blood spatters pavement, under marching feet,
is dragged, looped about the streets in a homicide calligraphy,
paralyzing the squinting mercenaries.
Out come the canons,
dancing on their wheels,
silencing the gunfire,
spinning on their heels,
dissenting the sonata with rifle-explosion accompaniment.
Warrior sighs greet the late auxiliary:
armadas sing in baritone
while civilians scream soprano.
Children cry in alto.
Blood flows in legato.
Today some of us will die
so that the rest will open their eyes
to an oversky, cloud-bloated with lies.
While down below we blaze away our requiem.
And by the hand of this same melody we die.
Here lies humanity,
fashioning,
always,
a bellicose smile.
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 10:55 AM UTC
Benedetto sia'l giorno e'l mese e l'anno
e la stagione e'l tempo e l'ora e'l punto
e'l bel paese e'l loco ov'io fui giunto
da'duo begli occhi che legato m'ànno;
E benedetto il primo dolce affanno
ch'ì ebbi ad esser con Amor congiunto,
e l'arco e le saette ond'ì fui punto,
e le piaghe che'nfin al cor mi vanno.
Benedette le voci tante ch'io
chiamando il nome de mia donna ò sparte,
e i sospiri e le lagrime e'l desio;
e benedette sian tutte le carte
ov'io fama l'acquisto, e'l pensier mio,
ch'è sol di lei; si ch'altra non v'à parte.
1.5k
Elusive trail to find amity
Disillusioned by refinement
By the artistry
They paint the false idol
Sustain life
They are incarcerated
Entities become suicidal
Just like a recital
We play one note
The audience becomes
Mesmerized
They’re hypnotized by a false legato
Seduced by the long and smoothed melody
Never to be awaken
Lullabies from a harlot alto
Close your eyes
The murals
They’re out of proportion
Like unwanted infants
Doomed to abortions
A time of lies
An age of deception
Awaken the mind to divine
Those who give you the path of ascension
The era of misconceptions
Come back to life from resurrection
We suffocate from abused tranquility
No hope of possibilities
Life suffers from unbalanced symmetry
My broken heart
It’s hard to watch
Killing for pleasure
They raise war from down under
Life is lost from a hail of thunder
From the ashes
They pronounce, we are deities
Long live the king
He’s nothing more than a story
We are the glory
Endless violence
Speeches
Of power
Hope is no longer a matter
I give you 1 hour
Open your heart
Open your mind
Leave your bodies
Leave this declining
Reality
Before you’re consumed by wealth & power
Say goodbye
We are no longer…
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 1:20 PM UTC
Silver
is a lot like the night when the gentle moonlight shone through my windows
and I swore it was perfect for a slow dance —
those kind of dances when you feel every molecule of your twirling and swaying;
those kind of dances when you dance to your own music –
legato and occasional staccatos during moments
when you close your eyes and feel the world beneath your feet skip to your beat;
those kind of dances you swore that you could win the title “best dancing couple”
even if you were dancing alone
because your best accompaniment is often yourself.
Silver is a lot like when we wished on that 1111 moment together and
you said you wished for me to be happy,
it may have just been a simple wish but
it sent this tingling feeling down my spine
and I could feel my heart thumping (lub dub lub dub),
pumping the pure essence of happiness into my veins.
Silver is a lot like the day when we first met,
when our eyes first met in this 2 second glimpse
that made the little butterflies in my stomach go crazy.
It’s what I remember my dreams to be.
Sprinkled with glitter
and how I woke up to the freshness of the previous night.
Silver is watching darkness engulf the place where I took a little stroll,
I remembered the crickets chirping to the dampness of the air,
I remembered how the wind caressed my face with it’s soft touch,
I remembered the trickling of the river water
which carried with it so much potential and brilliance.
I remember.
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 10:22 AM UTC
Anticipation tiptoes from table to table.
My Jelly Roll Soul
Sets sail for Alice’s rabbit hole.
In front of a hushed, hip crowd,
The music condenses into a scarlet cloud,
And originality speaks aloud.
A trumpet sounds,
A subway car rumbles underground,
Signaling all the cool cats
That it’s time to get down.
A virtuoso teases black and white keys,
Shaping notes with subtle expertise.
The closest I’ve ever seen, man come to mastering machine.
Slowing the frenzied, fractured step of the East Village above,
To E’s. Legato ease.
Optional Z’s
Leave many without sleep,
For who could snooze
At times like these?
The alto-sax
Is bending C’s!
Just listen in, on that wailing bassoon,
Who howls to the moon.
It might be noon,
Up there.
But that’s up a flight of stairs,
And I’m enjoying my jazzy state of affairs.
There will always be time for Nostalgia in Times Square.
Feb 16, 2011
Feb 16, 2011 at 2:57 PM UTC
It is raining Chopin
Reminding me that together we are an arpeggio
Alone, I am played in legato
I plant myself in every horizon and
at one end of each rainbow; the other end belonging to somebody else.
I watch the clock and can tell it is 8:00 when the train passes
but I can’t see the hands move.
It is 2012 not because of the fireworks in
limbo between December and January, but because
I can feel the red yarn in me tightening –
I have less.
Dec 15, 2012
Dec 15, 2012 at 12:44 PM UTC
Fill me with music.
Let me brim with your melodies, and cry out lyrics.
Taste the guitar’s strings on my tongue, feel them strum your body into ******
Fingers pressing against my keys, lifting vibrations from the very base of my core, and coaxing them from my mouth.
My torso acts as violin, and your lips a bow. They leave me humming for you, deep and legato.
Your tongue flicks against reeds of sensation. Punctuates key changes and where your instrument shall come in.
I, the band, is directed by you, the maestro, until you are ready to finish our song.
I feel the heat of your symphony radiating into me.
I sing soprano only for you.
Together, we are an orchestra.
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 10:35 PM UTC
Since you have already plucked my heart strings,
let us make music together.
Whisper to me at night,
in syllable serenades that I
will only half remember on waking.
Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,
until my tongue can stand it no more
and I must speak in symphonies.
Touch me delicately,
tickle my ribs until they become piano keys,
and play them until they cry out
chords that spell your name.
Let your laughter be trills in our cadenzas.
Let the pop of your knee drive a march to my bed.
Let me run my fingers up your spine,
jumping vertebrae like octaves,
from your tip to your toes.
Let my every shuddered breath be but syncopation
to the bass drum of your heart.
Be quiet with me,
let us play in piano,
soft as silence or sleep.
Stay there, linger for as long as the fermata holds.
And then, let us raise our voices together,
glorious crescendos upon crescendos,
until at last we can build no longer, and
return together to the tonic.
Run your hands across my hips,
play my longing in liquid legato strokes,
effortless in your endeavors.
Touch me again.
Let our gasps play counterpoint
to the melodies of our moans.
Take what you will of me,
fill me with song,
write sheet music in my lungs,
so that every breath I draw
sings on its way out.
Purse your lips and kiss me like embouchure.
Give me every quaver, every semitone, every holy harmony.
Leave me buzzing vibrato,
kiss me con brio.
Let me caress your delicate curves,
as though you were a violin made flesh.
If my temperament be just, then play on.
And let us be of one form, sonata-allegro,
until we must be jazz.
And then we shall burn the world with passion,
with chords no one knows but us.
So, for the sake of recapitulation,
I must ask again:
let us make music together.
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 5:06 PM UTC
Deep breaths I breathed
Such pain, never eased
Grasp a hopeless dream
Hear the cries and screams
No longer their savoir
Such depressing behavior
Snow falls onto lifeless hair
My soul caught in a snare
My dear brother
My dear mother
Goals, I did not achieve
Life gone like a staccato
Perhaps I can become a Legato.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 1:45 PM UTC
Good girls are bad girls
Who haven’t been caught
Man, I’m telling you
Forget what you thought
She’s her mama's little girl
And her daddy’s princess
Her big brother loves her
With her they feel blessed
She got into Harvard
Future full of success
Modest and preppy
Is the way she will dress
She’s got straight A’s
4.0 G.P.A
But this goodies got a secret
That she’ll never say
She’s got a tattoo
She keeps covered up
She’s got some piercings
Make her look like a punk
She’ll sneak out of school
To be with her boyfriend
But she’s real good at lying
No one finds out in the end
She drives way too fast
It can’t be street legal
With loud music pumping
Her driving’s not dull
She’s got beer in one hand
A cigarette in the other
She looks pretty bad ***
As she lights up another
She’s the life of the party
Carpe diem is her motto
She refuses to slow down
Or live with legato
This girl is the prodigy
Who keeps up the image
But she still has her fun
She has double privilege
So yeah, to you
She’s might be a good girl
But good girls are bad girls
Who never get caught
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 7:53 PM UTC
we would be jazz—
smooth, mellow,
soul-damning.
burning with slow passion
or running and stumbling with joyous laughter.
no matter where we go—
up or down,
fast or slow,
we’d hit all the right notes,
replete with trills and runs,
bringing us to both highs and lows,
making beautiful melodies.
though sometimes
we seem to be out of sync,
it does not discount
from the beauty
that is us.
nothing subtracts.
there is only harmony,
no cacophony.
simplicity or complexity,
staccato or legato,
we will always be
jazz.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 5:12 AM UTC
dissonant from the ground that ached
of frostbite,
fractured and mistress of
the Sargasso
she birthed the thin ghost of dawn
in legato
drawing the trembling line of
her lips.
fervent, the bulbous-born sky
washed her
in fat drunken clouds of
gray ships
climaxed in the aqueduct of
erratic dusk
and emerged as deity of
bagatelle and dust.
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 11:46 PM UTC
How the struggles served to strengthen my love for you
and faith that I am standing inside your enhancement walls
In sleep, a calmness washed over me,
White oceanic noise,
Ebbing and flowing like
Earth's lungs inhaling and exhaling
I awoke in the sunlight,
And heard the soft coos of pigeons outside my window,
Assembling their family nests
I watched as burdens of past and future
Passed through me like driftwood
In the clear river flow of now
As the last ruminants of the ripples faded
The rhythmic flow of my breath,
Legato, no longer staccato
And thoughts like harpsichord
Strumming on my axon strings
In this serene love I'll rest with you,
Tranquil and protected,
A journey forever written,
To find myself back to you
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
Alive.
Dancing in the wind
Perfect image of grace
Like a frolicking maiden
With rippling, velvet skirts of azure
Caring not,
Thinking not,
Only dancing
To the melody of nature.
Flowing,
Careening,
Waltzing
With a gentle zephyr
To the smooth legato
Of the wild.
Nov 26, 2011
Nov 26, 2011 at 3:32 AM UTC
I lay here.
My body aches from the endless months before.
It yearns for that beautiful darkness
That comes with sleep.
The darkness that it has failed to see for far too long.
I hear nothing but the fan circling above
And crickets chirping merrily outside my window.
Bed is soft, and warm, and comforting.
My limbs sink to become one with the mattress.
But even as my body is at peace,
My mind swirls around going ten-thousand different directions.
All at light speed.
These thoughts crash together
Causing my body to **** to tense,
Reminding it that it is not really resting.
As the thoughts break themselves apart,
They sort into a hallway of organized threads,
Each needing close examination before retiring until tomorrow.
I start in the past.
With the threads that shine in an assortment of pale colors.
As I examine them, they begin to vibrate.
The song is sad, but hopeful,
The notes smooth, legato.
Then I move along to the last 24 hours.
The colors bright, the song light and happy.
Trills and runs go off cheerfully, then make their way to the distance.
I move forward.
The threads are dark and intense,
The song creepy, almost wrong.
In another outburst,
Chaos erupts.
The threads wrap around me.
Showing all the possibilities.
They start with the way I want things to be,
But as time goes by,
Each gets more wrong, more disturbed.
The threads cling to me for hours,
Until finally, just as the sun peeks over the mountains,
Like a light switch,
All goes still.
All goes silent.
All goes black.
The threads dormant at last.
Until tomorrow comes
And it all starts anew.
Jul 24, 2010
Jul 24, 2010 at 8:57 PM UTC
It should be dark.
Ethereality is brought upon by shadows
Comforting shades that beautifully waylay prancing lights
permeating mysticism to arouse the blandest of hearts.
Clustered crowns of effervescent greens scraped the sky
Their lithe fingers clasped, uneasy to divulge light
yet they do so for their trunkless kin at their feet
There should be music.
At dusk the chiming of army throats moan
the deep humming legato of elastic croak to their content
rich baritones with an orchestral blend of alluring notes.
Exoskeletal feet, an angels' choir too quick to play
Their voices, violins in concerto with hissing air
that slither in between the crevices of trees for beauty to play
I should be afraid.
A tiny mouse that shifts beneath dry leaves should scare
Rustling grass dimmed by jet skies fill you with dread
The tapping of leafless hands on rusted roof puts you under duress
Flash lightning mimics the morning in negative filter
The heavy blows of drizzling rain harmoniously mix with discordant wind
Then when it all settles, the beating of your own cardinal is unnerving.
Then I realize, all of which I stated are now in memory
That the stone road that always greeted me is now but dry and dirt
That the music I once heard met a sharp end that made everything else flat
That the movement in the brush no longer shivered my spine
That the birds and beasts will never again come to cheer
That the storms that ravaged my midsummer's night dream
is the same storm that ravaged my youth
And without these childhood memories
I am left unsophisticated, rural
Bare.
Mar 26, 2016
Mar 26, 2016 at 1:20 AM UTC
like a melody he moves
the rhythm of his mood
reflecting clouds;
grey turns to silver
shone on his head,
and a smile
so soft across his face
brings my mind
and longing to his space.
the dance of a rag in hand
smooth like jazz
caressing every surface.
nothing is neglected
by long legato strokes
along a smooth, pale canvas
cleared for his next composition
to do it all again.
I am jealous of his kitchen.
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 12:24 PM UTC
What is life?
A storm,
Watching the tangled web we weave
like lightning in the sky
as our life flashes before us.
Then ends
With a great roll of thunder,
A great sigh of relief.
Love is
a vibrato
two identities working together
to create something beautiful
Music and man.
The first meeting tentative,
suddenly grows with intensity
understood by few
and held for as long as possible
Until finally it fades
into a smooth legato.
Death
the most indefinite of all.
Never final, only physically permanent.
Where only six feet of dirt
or an oven
separate you from alive.
But never final.
Memories never die.
Your state is simply shifted
and you have become.
Immortal.
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 2:25 AM UTC
Mi domando che madri avete avuto.
Se ora vi vedessero al lavoro
in un mondo a loro sconosciuto,
presi in un giro mai compiuto
d'esperienze così diverse dalle loro,
che sguardo avrebbero negli occhi?
Se fossero lì, mentre voi scrivete
il vostro pezzo, conformisti e barocchi,
o lo passate a redattori rotti
a ogni compromesso, capirebbero chi siete?
Madri vili, con nel viso il timore
antico, quello che come un male
deforma i lineamenti in un biancore
che li annebbia, li allontana dal cuore,
li chiude nel vecchio rifiuto morale.
Madri vili, poverine, preoccupate
che i figli conoscano la viltà
per chiedere un posto, per essere pratici,
per non offendere anime privilegiate,
per difendersi da ogni pietà.
Madri mediocri, che hanno imparato
con umiltà di bambine, di noi,
un unico, nudo significato,
con anime in cui il mondo è dannato
a non dare né dolore né gioia.
Madri mediocri, che non hanno avuto
per voi mai una parola d'amore,
se non d'un amore sordidamente muto
di bestia, e in esso v'hanno cresciuto,
impotenti ai reali richiami del cuore.
Madri servili, abituate da secoli
a chinare senza amore la testa,
a trasmettere al loro feto
l'antico, vergognoso segreto
d'accontentarsi dei resti della festa.
Madri servili, che vi hanno insegnato
come il servo può essere felice
odiando chi è, come lui, legato,
come può essere, tradendo, beato,
e sicuro, facendo ciò che non dice.
Madri feroci, intente a difendere
quel poco che, borghesi, possiedono,
la normalità e lo stipendio,
quasi con rabbia di chi si vendichi
o sia stretto da un assurdo assedio.
Madri feroci, che vi hanno detto:
Sopravvivete! Pensate a voi!
Non provate mai pietà o rispetto
per nessuno, covate nel petto
la vostra integrità di avvoltoi!
Ecco, vili, mediocri, servi,
feroci, le vostre povere madri!
Che non hanno vergogna a sapervi
- nel vostro odio - addirittura superbi,
se non è questa che una valle di lacrime.
È così che vi appartiene questo mondo:
fatti fratelli nelle opposte passioni,
o le patrie nemiche, dal rifiuto profondo
a essere diversi: a rispondere
del selvaggio dolore di esser uomini.
897
Brevi erano le tue lettere, precise, tutte muscolo e nervo,
di mano più usa al compasso, alla squadra, al gesto del duro comando.
Dicevan le semplici cose con semplici **** parole;
ma due ne portavano in fine, due, sempre le stesse: "Sei mia".
E quando ella giungeva, leggendo, al termine noto,
s'abbandonava all'indietro, vuotata del sangue, morente d'amore.
Ombre violacee intorno alla socchiusa bocca, all'affilato naso
precipitoso palpito delle vene gonfiate alle tempie alla gola
cecità delle palpebre, tensione delle mascelle nel desiderio
faccia di donna agonizzante in estasi, tu non la vedesti,
nessuno la vide. Era sola.
Ora, ogni notte, la donna che più non vorrebbe esser viva
nel vuoto della sua casa che ha odore di cenere spenta
scioglie un pacco di lettere legato con un nastro nero.
E legge; e, giunta al termine ben noto che a ognuna è sigillo,
ancor s'abbandona all'indietro, vuotata del sangue, morente d'amore.
Così, dalla tomba, con dura predace potenza di sillabe scritte
tu l'imprigioni, o scomparso, tu la possiedi così.
698
I wish I could just melt into music.
I know that sounds weird, but I wish I could just become a never ending, legato phrase of music. Life takes so much out of me. I want to become an undying piece of beauty that will never be forgotten.
Music isn’t just something I listen to, or something that passes time.
Music is everything.
Every hour of every day and every night, there is music playing in my mind. It never stops. There’s nothing I can do to silence it.
I never want to stop getting chills because of the descant to the most beautiful choral piece.
I want to be the writer of the most gorgeous piano piece.
I never want to forget how the melody to my favourite song goes, even if it’s been twenty years since I last heard it.
I never want to forget how the lyrics to those songs made me cry, or laugh, or belt until my voice was gone.
There’s so much more to music than just notes on a sheet of paper.
Music is what keeps me alive.
Music is infinite.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 6:59 PM UTC