"mendelssohn" poems
A cowboy in love with his horse
was convinced they should marry, of course.
They’d spent quality time roping cattle
And he was happiest when in the saddle.
“Love is Love, the high court has opined,
So why should folks deny me mine!”
The neighborhood blondes he found silly,
So he went for long rides with the fillies.
While he flirted with Pintos and Roans,
the Palomino he loved as his own.
Such idylls they spend in the bower
That he threw her a nice bridle shower.
He rented a barn as the hall
and invited his friends one and all.
While Mendelssohn is favored by most
He chose the “Call to the Post”
For their first dance he hoped they could play
“The Run for the Roses” that day.
All his plans came to naught, sad to say
When the love of his life answered” Neigh”
If an animal is your “one and only”
Better make it a sheep, not a pony!
Jun 27, 2013
Jun 27, 2013 at 7:38 AM UTC
Axel, who never had a rocking horse, once rode a bright blue tricycle. He called it his ‘Athenian Rhapsody’. He loved to play the tuba in bed, and when he was feeling particularly happy, would sit on the loo in the outside shed, pants around his ankles oompa-pa’ing till the cows came home.
That was quite a while ago; the tuba and the tricycle have gone, yet he can still hear the triangle sound the bell made on his tricycle, and still remembers the scraping of the old keys on the ancient tuba.
Axel listens to old sounds very well (all the time): he loves Bach, Mendelssohn and Donovan. He loves to eat crumpets with honey and drink a large white mug of milky tea; it reminds him of summer fishing trips to Lake Eucumbine, mushrooms and gnats in the full-sun morning air, (he loves to talk fishing when he’s playing chess with Carl the orderly, often quoting from his favourite magazine, ‘Modern Fly Fishing’).
Axel was once an expert at fly fishing; tying the ‘super moonshadow’ to perfection (he named the fly after what he thought was a Donovan song, written by Cat Stevens).
When the hospital staff remember to buy him a new box, Axel loves to drink Lady Grey tea made from tea bags, he prefers tea bags, he feels that somehow they bring clearer definition to tea making.
Axel thinks a lot about definition, noting how the edges of his bed are very clearly defined by the clean-blue hospital blankets that drop suddenly to the ocean of the grey linoleum floor. He likes the smell of cleanblue, it’s somehow a new sea to sail and sometimes the feel of his favourite jumper when he was a boy: a definite edge of beginning and end. He knows that soon he’ll cross the floor-grey ocean, sailing under a white sheet. But this is not a thing Axel dwells on for very long, he prefers to think of such things as his next chess move and flirting with Miriam the night nurse.
—
Axel has just beaten Carl in a game of chess. He’s said goodnight to Miriam, a long quiet goodnight, a good long, good night. He won’t wake again, he senses this – and is peaceful.
When his last breath comes he hears; a faint scraping sound and a single precious note from a triangle bell on a bright blue tricycle.
They’re good sounds.
They are old sounds.
They bring him…
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 8:10 AM UTC
May the furnace burn us
So that we might rise from crash's ashes
Like the Phoenix as Felix
Pounds out a bravado sonata
Something brash and passionate
Like abstract fashion it
Causes conundrums among tongues
Flapping, rolling, lapping, growing
Synaptic tactics mapping spastic
Canals through the fungal jungles
Of minds melting from psilosybin I been
Growing dendrites as my pen writes
Reaching Zen heights while the men fight.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 5:06 PM UTC
There in the fringe of trees between
the upper field and the edge of the one
below it that runs above the valley
one time I heard in the early
days of summer the clear ringing
six notes that I knew were the opening
of the Fingal's Cave Overture
I heard them again and again that year
and the next summer and the year
afterward those six descending
notes the same for all the changing
in my own life since the last time
I had heard them fall past me from
the bright air in the morning of a bird
and I believed that what I had heard
would always be there if I came again
to be overtaken by that season
in that place after the winter
and I would wonder again whether
Mendelssohn really had heard them somewhere
far to the north that many years ago
looking up from his youth to listen to
those six notes of an ancestor
spilling over from a presence neither
water nor human that led to the cave
in his mind the fluted cliffs and the wave
going out and the falling water
he thought those notes could be the music for
Mendelssohn is gone and Fingal is gone
all but his name for a cave and for one
piece of music and the black-capped warbler
as we called that bird that I remember
singing there those notes descending
from the age of the ice dripping
I have not heard again this year can it
be gone then will I not hear it
from now on will the overture begin
for a time and all those who listen
feel that falling in them but as always
without knowing what they recognize
1.3k
Once again I find
the morning light breaks through
my eyes and wakes this sleeping mind,
it seems the dreams will have to wait
or shall I not cooperate?
Tschaikovsky Tuesday
is a nutcracker
I try to be PC
but it still breaks my *****
When I get there
if I get there
I'll send a postcard
or a telegram
I need no internet
and informative technology
is not the thing
I want to be
or see
when I get there.
Good morning Mendelssohn
'tis not midsummer nor is it night,
dream on.
Suspended on my eyelashes
each moment flashes to
briefly burn
all things cease and here
on the plateau
I find again the stillness
wherein lies the peace.
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 11:44 PM UTC
Music sang the the soul.
Of a little girl,
Who's only goal,
Was to play.
Anything from,
Beethoven to Bach,
Mendelssohn,
And Debussy.
Art opened the heart,
Of a lost older girl,
Who didn't know,
What was true,
She painted,
From morning,
Till night.
Alone in her room.
She wanted to write.
The words fresh,
In a fragile mind,
Afraid to say,
Or tell,
The story,
Of pain.
And Triumph.
The notes of the music,
Started to mesh,
The paint,
On the brush,
It faded.
Words lost,
In translation,
Losing meaning.
She chose a safe path.
One without risk.
Without pain,
Or seeming,
Completely alone.
She needed,
Perfect mediocrity.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 4:37 AM UTC
Poetry is a mirror of our soul but also a window to the outside world---that which is external and tangible--neither is complete without the other
but it's only the inner side of us that understands the deeper meaning of life and all things. It's strange but true---the intangible is mysterious, profound and has power and resources latent within us--most of which we aren't even aware---until kindled and brought to light by the muse of poetry. Then a clear light dawns upon us and we begin to see and understand things better. The 'physical we' is, in my view, of lesser significance than the 'abstract we' or should I say the 'essential we'?---that which can be seen, handled or articulated is only the periphery of truth and things but not the core--we are larger than what we think but we don't grasp this as we are lost in the banality and humdrum of daily life--we are walking shadows rather than light and fall short of our real potential. Talking of language and music, Felix Mendelssohn wrote (my paraphrase):
words mean less to me than music and it's music that speaks clearer to me.
All said, man is a mystery as life is but they intersect--at every point.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC
Music sang the the soul.
Of a little girl,
Who's only goal,
Was to play.
Anything from,
Beethoven to Bach,
Mendelssohn,
And Debussy.
Art opened the heart,
Of a lost older girl,
Who didn't know,
What was true,
She painted,
From morning,
Till night.
Alone in her room.
She wanted to write.
The words fresh,
In a fragile mind,
Afraid to say,
Or tell,
The story,
Of pain.
And Triumph.
The notes of the music,
Started to mesh,
The paint,
On the brush,
It faded.
Words lost,
In translation,
Losing meaning.
She chose a safe path.
One without risk.
Without pain,
Or seeming,
Completely alone.
She needed,
Perfect mediocrity.
Dec 18, 2012
Dec 18, 2012 at 4:38 AM UTC
Music background:
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto no.2.
Figure: two beggar sisters
Background: autumn, double rainbow, butterfly, accordion, birds, horses, cattle, and sheep
Scene: a large meadow
_________
Not far from the painter’s window
two beggar
sisters sitting in a large meadow
He whistles the birds’ melody,
the distant mountain,
he sees horses and cattle lowing,
after thunderstorm, autumn day
The painter silently watches the two sisters
Has she finished playing and dropping her little accordion without noticing?
Will her sister tell the blind girl double rainbows in the darkening sky?
Wind heavily blowing at the worn-clad pair
And he sees the red haired blind girl gently hold her sister
Can you tell me of these autumn colours?
The painter sees the double rainbow across the eastern sky
He swiftly sketches through the window
He paints his heart sympathic love
Will the blind girl feel joyous like yellow?
Perfumes dark green,
vibrant like red enrich their hope
Where the double rainbow appears in the eastern sky
The painter paints his inner calm,
butterfly tranquil mauve.
Jun 26, 2019
Jun 26, 2019 at 3:35 PM UTC
Miss G talked of Mendelssohn
put on some record
of some cave
Yehudit looked
back at me
at the back of class
and smiled
her eyes and that smile
drove me wild
moved me
to thinking things
Reynard sat next to me
drawing a matchstick figure
of Miss G in his exercise book
at the back
the music started up
the rest of the kids in class
sat still and listened
Yehudit turned
to the front
I sat thinking about her
taking in her hair
and shoulders
how her hair
touched her shoulders
and I wished
I was her hair
and could touch
her shoulders or maybe
her school skirt
that I could embrace her
or maybe her
hidden bra
that I could...
the music played
Reynard drew
Miss G sat
in her chair at front
gazing at the class
or sat with eyes closed
nodding her head
I wished
I was with Yehudit
some place else
instead.
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 3:33 AM UTC
Let me sing Amazing Grace as it’s never been sung before.
Let me rest upon the top of the mountain and touch the sun.
Let me dance as if there’s no tomorrow until the bell tolls.
Let me feel the delicious fur of my nonjudgmental pup one last time.
Let me eat as many perfect peaches as I can, hand to mouth and repeat.
Let me hear Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E until it is in my heart forever.
Let me learn to express my love without even a twinge of self-recrimination.
Let me breath from deep in my soul the pure and newborn air of freedom.
Let me….let me… one last hour, one last minute, one last second.
Oct 23, 2020
Oct 23, 2020 at 12:42 PM UTC
There is a slow
deliberation
on the **********
before the mirror
in your room
the slow removal
piece by piece
until you are down
to your underwear
and bra.
You stand
there gazing
looking at
the mirrored
bed behind
imagining
Benny was there
giving you the eye.
But he isn't of course
just your wanting
him there
gazing at your
strip-show
with his hazel eyes.
Your clothes lie
where they fell.
You pretend
he is cheering you on
commenting on your
revealed flesh
and shape.
Downstairs your mother
is preparing dinner
the radio pushing out
some Mendelssohn.
You sigh
and pick up
the fallen clothes
and stack them neat
and dress in
after school clothes
bit by bit
knowing Benny
isn't there to see.
Your mother calls you
like a laboured cow
and you guess you'll
eat the dishes up dinner
somehow.
May 1, 2018
May 1, 2018 at 12:18 PM UTC