"metronomes" poems
big sweaters, ghibli, acrylic paint, cafes, knit blankets and unplanned afternoon naps on the couch, gardens, bananas, vanilla almond milk, soft yarn to crochet into ****** scarves, candles after midnight, the big trees with bulky roots, patio furniture, pianos in random buildings, the internet, manatees, the boundless colours of nail polish, peanut butter & honey, rubber boots, pens that write well, fresh new notebooks, skylights, american netflix, mothers that understand, tête à têtes, one glass of sweet white wine, awkward eye contact that turns into comfortable kissing, airplanes, fresh air, baseball caps, the female collective, the really good dark chocolate, flowers, pumpkin spice lattes and ***** chai lattes, candid laughter, yoga, oceans, high waisted shorts, striped t-shirts, docile cats, playful pups, french presses, integrity, sunscreen, meerkats, penguins, chameleons, autumn leaves, fall fashion, ruby woo mac lipstick, osho, dynamic meditation, compassion, siblings, scrambled eggs, smart phones, garageband, metronomes, hot glue guns, quinoa, ferry boats, soft hands, bicycles, real people, fat snowflakes in ample, graceful ********** backpacks that don't hurt your shoulders, hair conditioner, multi-vitamins, soft sand under bare feet, people that own up to lies, clarity, samsara, satori, samasati, visions, echinacea, lavender oil and frankincense, ambrosia apples and ripe avocados, authenticity, Morgan Freeman's voice, good kissers, ******* iced tea on a hot day, curtains, the smell of beeswax, art galleries, hand massages and foot massages, reiki, plums, mild thunderstorms, soccer ***** good surprises, when birds don't **** on your head.
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
We fall,
and hard,
and in the shadows,
***** ourselves on snags,
that tear our clothes;
grazed and cut,
we stagger on -
Impressions, ideas, fancies!
Of these have we been disabused.
But is this spring,
come again?
Lovely,
yesterday,
in the bright sunlight,
to see you,
felt green hat in among the photo clouds,
apple suedes on the gallery's dank floor.
Melvyn,
and I,
merrily circling with you the light cloud images,
my nostrils full of pollen spikes.
The pictures:
wisps of trailing dreams churning in ‘scapes of infinite blue;
dark clouds,
in amongst them,
too.
Photographs in two time places
caught;
at once, all:
the other and t'other.
So excitement swells,
and everything besides us quells,
because the knowing of itself,
knows,
and dares beyond the frames;
to skirt knowingly the unsaid;
to want beyond the wounded past,
to pull things,
once again,
inside out.
In whimsy’s currents flow these thoughts,
these feelings,
these drives;
swirling in eddies,
so that as you sit,
on a summer’s day,
it moves,
a mirror to everything above.
The wavelets on the surface,
hammered into shape,
burn, bite and dazzle;
the sun’s flames leaping and dancing on ripples.
In the basement,
on the concrete,
your Y proneness shifts,
releasing knees on black-clad thighs;
two pendulums swinging,
brushing;
yawing metronomes in the cool,
coolness of my desultory thoughts.
Oh, what am I saying?
Feelings like reveries walk along these silver lips straying languorously.
These myths are too soon made,
carried one to the next,
one-on-one,
until contained no longer,
become new truths.
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 8:40 PM UTC
5
monkey bars
they were all she could hold on to
when the ground crumbled
beneath her trembling feet
4
swings
they were the metronomes
that conducted her life
so she could stay together
3
slides
they helped her explain
what she was feeling
when everything was moving too fast
2
basketball hoops
they showed her how to do
what other people wanted
to get what she needed
1
merry-go-round
that taught her how not to puke
when things wouldn't stop spinning
inside of her head
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 10:18 PM UTC
enthroned above the kingdom of desire
hardly born... a chestnut of wane fire
stealing metronomes from garden gnomes
shunning the gimme
of asking for nothing.
your breaks mend
iris slivers sleep in dungarees
of dross and stale glass
sick lemurs. dancing in the Cherokee of sublime Dementia
dueling rhapsodies of function
utterly bereft
of form ....
unformed.
Oct 10, 2011
Oct 10, 2011 at 11:44 PM UTC
I aimlessly drifted in teenage years,
From subtle scion to zaftig plebe.
Seen phony glory, vanquished fears,
And the stench of a wicked glebe.
From below, saw the stars up high,
Igniting horizons with callow wonder.
Beheld colossal beauty with mine inner eye,
Begged for chained thoughts asunder.
Amidst the serene flock to be slain,
Oft' a titan, seldom a vacant savant.
Known sorrow, elation, gain, vain, pain,
This mortal hour, hear joyful lament.
How quick we are to bid farewell,
How slow for friendship to pierce the cloth.
The rhythmic ache of that darkened knell,
The sobbing whimpers for a lover's warmth.
Nix for reciprocated amity, yet!
My seat of affection thrives in twilight.
Herein discipline is adamantly set,
Whence shall this ****** ire take flight?
Into the night that covers my soul,
Unleash that verdant star I see.
The divine abyss have taken its toll,
I pray the shadow is only me.
Note the ease to neglect one's clan,
Yet savored glee of reunions by blood.
Fury cease my elder ties, an infant plan,
By filial ardor, I still kneel in mud.
Star-shine ablaze onto vivid blooms,
Arise the stench of broiling debris.
Beauteous summer-tide metronomes,
The sinking scythe follow gales of peace.
Labor come sweat yield sweet fruition,
Tis annual come the bronze harvest.
Wrongful vengeance seek humble redemption,
Autumn under siege of well-fed zest.
Stormy vista rime graying meadows,
Entrench the sepsis by the ice age.
Taste weeping woe of guilty widows,
Lest their beloved hunger in cage.
Arise young lilac out of barren frosts,
Touch the vital aura to begin anew.
Altruists gladly pay auric costs,
To stalk vile leviathan into dew.
May stones bear indistinct distinction,
So my stride shall stumble and falter.
Peace paint heroes of sluggish fiction,
Chaos rouse prodigies from quiet slumber.
Aug 28, 2010
Aug 28, 2010 at 5:12 AM UTC
He knew
it was made
with a poetic queue,
with a slight of hand.
He laid
on her fuzzy apartment floor
that sounded like tapping and ticking
of distant metronomes
he had forgotten long ago.
His volume was low
on his ruby red guitar--
Six strings rusting.
He only felt the busing
of expectations not fully known.
If only he were alone.
If only he had seen
that she is something
more than just a traffic cone.
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 3:06 PM UTC
They spoke jazz
the words trickled from their tongues
like magic
they weren't rich
or famous
or connected
but they were **** good people
tongues like metronomes
they spoke in flashes of music
music music
not just sounds layered
atop other sounds
but soul and heart and fire and passions,
aching sadness
heartbroken longing
and the taste of danger
and ***
they were broke
scratching and hustling
for nickels and dimes
and forty ounces of freedom,
if they save up long enough
they can score a nickel bag
but they never do
and they still somehow get their hands on the stuff
malt liquor hangovers
wake them in the morning
and they smoke loosies
given to them by the over-privileged college kids
and their nice clothes
and undeserved smiles
they are the rat pack
hearts beating to the sounds of saxophones
and in my book
they're alright
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 10:58 PM UTC
I hope I die in summer
on a humid night
when the grass is yawning and stretching out
toward the moon,
and the frogs are croaking on
like a chorus of metronomes
as the last curls of life wisp away from my body,
a final reminder
that things and time
will continue beautifully,
harmoniously,
without me.
Jan 20, 2018
Jan 20, 2018 at 3:06 AM UTC
the camphor of your exhale, is me -
easy breathing the tear gas.
i bark like a dog.
i chase habits with discipline; chumming the waters of known sharks
that pray on other oceans and hunt other seals...
like prey.
i'm so elaborate, my symbols call ' time out '
just to catch a glimpse of my
always.
i tangle me.
a morphine drip of metronomes
yawning splendidly... a tide of pools.
an uncommon dress -
in a code, derived from the stomach -
of the throat...the next, next; and the kept boat
capsized.
no joke.
Ha.
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 3:20 PM UTC
It is so surreal how vivid i see, the past playing out in my memories.
swinging away, a smile and a quick simple kiss.
these are the memories that my heart does miss.
Black and pink, the suave and the silk, lips locked in love, leaving behind stains the color of milk.
the pain and the ache, of missing a voice, separation of hearts, by another's cruel choice.
only to later surface a strength that lay hidden within, to persevere through the peril, oh, our beautiful, innocent sin.
my lover, my lady, my best friend, my baby..call it crazy but these are the memories that my heart misses most.
Second chances, are second chances ever a plausible reality.
i can see the providence, but i doubt
oh God can it be.
i dont feel up to par, or deserving, or perhaps its not that but that my heart feels fear at the yearning
i still remember the burning
and the butterflys, i help deep within, i still long for the love.
memories of our innocent beautiful sin.
oh we meet again, my old companions, if i may.. my friend.
namely so, you are my memories.
contemplating second chances, for the future, to have what we had back
oh my sweetest of regrets, how i look back on your embrace
as i sit here missing you, as some soldier off at war
i can still here the gunmetal clash, as you slammed and walked out that door.
such a beautiful bloom our embrace was that warm spring.
now the pitter patter of teardrop showers metronomes as you sing in my dreams
are these my memories of second chances...or my second chance for memories
Jun 22, 2015
Jun 22, 2015 at 2:42 PM UTC
It’s about boot heels for metronomes tonight,
the out of tune guitar grinning on the upstroke
is our Harvest, is our reveling
in daybreak frost never coming—
can be
warded off
by rosy cheeks
a two-step
a whisky breakdown—
Not yet, not yet
Drinking off cold to keep a rhythm
in step with Michigan months
shifting to auburn tones
like old-fashioned photographs.
Until ***** hounds trickle into blankets,
incubate into hangovers
thrown on living room couches,
floors, acres,
The cuddled up crop
of our Harvest Gathering.
Nov 6, 2011
Nov 6, 2011 at 8:37 PM UTC
*Her hands moved
Like metronomes,
As this soul
Sound
Like cellos,
Playing Bruch's
Kol Nidrei.*
© 2014 J.S.P.
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 5:42 AM UTC
Winter. Snow falls into my hand... melts in my palm.
A frozen brand. A stinging balm.
These whispered words are far from calm.
These frightened tears are far from gone.
Whispered words cut like the crack of a whip,
hot like the slowly melting snow,
in the wake of furious words below.
Hearts run cold like icy ground beneath shaky feet stepping quick
into the slowly sinking snow. Whispered words in metronome,
fill my head, though I and He are here alone.
I was not prepared for this confrontation.
In desperation, my feet refuse to slow;
Frightened tears and feet like metronomes;
I am running scared, and I fear I do not know
what words tonight might lead me safely home.
Apr 15, 2015
Apr 15, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
The waves are like dominos and metronomes.
Your fear plays the tide, and I, the sand.
Tortured simultaneously by blundering blows.
Torn and composed from hard to crisp to soft.
Laying there.
Taking it.
You glide across, pulling back with your constant motion.
Knowing you could drown me,
Collapse my core,
Enthrone my solidity and override it.
Still,
You draw back.
Over again, and I know you can cover me.
Weaken me.
Shatter my grain.
But we are one.
We are what everyone knows us as.
We coincide, collide,
Divide.
The foolish sand and her molder.
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 11:22 PM UTC
The air up here was sweet and pure
like forest's breath, the only cure
the song they sang was ours and theirs
I danced along the water's fires
with crystal scales and broken lyres
and metronomes behind my eyes
Is there no shelter in the pines
No one had caught these troubling signs
Invaders hail from everywhere
This glowing orb has now been rinsed
of all its beauty ever since
our mother's tears went up in flames
No longer can I taste the rain
All sanctuary feels the pain
foretelling all that is to come
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 11:18 PM UTC
Living a dream: My Valentines
I slept on reality,
suddenly her demeanor woke my eyes resting on her sheening tapestry when her art of beauty poisoned my iris with open arms; scoulding colours of appreciation.
Her gesture of silver smiles paralysed the vains of my sanity, invading the pit of doubt till tranquility filled the rest of me with notes of love—as celestial droplets metronomes showered my innocence.
As she made way towards me, lethargy held me still, dead trapped in silence, frozen by her garrulous face that said everything without puking a word in her shadow.
Approaching with the sailing wind in the raging storm of lucucious steps. Every foot taken, slice opened her perfection, incarnation frame whispering her story till I figured something about her.
If her beauty was a sword, she'd struck open the sky till heavens bled angels to kneel before her perfection worshiping the outline of her deity image.
Fell inlove with her, now my heart is soaking swollen, swimming in a paradise of affectionate oceans, emotions sinking—quick sands swallowing my all in.
So rather I gazed at her
Saw her in my future, rising to over-come the mountains of our struggle incase time separates thee hooked fingers on a duck's foot.
Her nails, nailed by God; he must've been in a mood when he created her.
Her arms, armed by her Mother; she must've been in a groove when she mad her.
Her cabinet of curves, curved flawlessly, craftmanship of an African architect.
Love flooding my chest, demanding I tell her 'three words' this demon is attempting to be freed from.
As she came past the threshold of my presence, beyond the potch of my welcoming aura..
Suddenly...knock knock!
My beautiful niece knocked at my door....So I woke up from a dream I was living. Gone is my Valentines with the night.. :(
Expect the unexpected. Hope you enjoyed the poem. Happy Valentines :)
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 5:52 AM UTC
my heart was a monotonous beeping
a soft old grandfather clock,
background noise at dinner parties
and a focal point for insomniacs
it droned on, neither increasing or decreasing,
neither rising or falling,
a steady beat of a steel drum on a hot summer night
i moved an inch closer to you
my heart was a ticking time bomb,
still steady as clockwork
but adding drama to the movie screen
it was stippling and a connect-the-dot photo of a sailboat
if you wired me up to a machine,
the line of my heart would be a steadily increasing mountain,
closer and closer to the destination
which is you
three inches closer
my heart was alla turca on piano
and impressionist paint strokes
it was dashed-dotted-dashed-dashed
it was swift like wind and current
it was nearly hummingbird wing
nearly death defying
you are two inches away
my heart has broken metronomes,
the tempo reached over five hundred
and chatter flooded into it
speaking words so fast
it sounds like a language from another planet
sometimes i wonder if my heart is really like mount rushmore
but it's not the head of founding fathers carved into the side
but the way you look when you look at me
you are here, i am here
the love i feel for you is plotted out on graph paper covering my floors but it keeps running off the page and i don't have enough paper
(a.m.c.)
Dec 26, 2014
Dec 26, 2014 at 4:15 PM UTC
...and in the corner I hear the metronome click
I fill the kettle and yet still I feel sick
My stomach thinks my throat's been cut
But I cannot eat.
I cannot compete or beat the metronome.
It steals the minutes of the day...and all it does..
..is tick and click and tick away.
I want to say why don't you stop but it catches me and mops another minute up.
I pour some boiling water in my cup and forget the tea.
The metronome has done for me.
I see each second die and give...a little less for me to live
And still it ticks.
It picks a moment when I blink and makes me think that all is well and the ticking is but just a shell upon the shore where timeless endless oceans roar.
And then it makes me think some more..
..and ticks again
I close the kitchen door
The metronome sat in the corner clicks right on..before to long my life will tick its last and in the shadows cast there will be another metronome that waits for me.
To tick into infinity..once more I see that endless face and in the place of midnights dream..
Where I shall rest my weary bones
I know there'll be
More. metronomes.
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Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 2:45 AM UTC
There is a Seymour in all of us - not more a fragile name but perhaps not less. We are all equally cut, strings loosened past our own internal metronomes, flashing bits of poetry past those who will listen. Or rather, those who must listen - the longer no one does the faster these strings within us snap piece-by-piece. Soon we will become balloons that float away and pop. We, leaving Earth for space. Note that poetry is not just the meter that stirs heat and snaps foot-beats within our tongues - but the needles that ***** them too.
In these poems are buried stick figures and falsified diary entries - excepts of a language wrought from our own souls. Today I wore a baseball mitt scribbled with bright green verse as to not get lost running around the diamonds. We are all, in our own way, misunderstood and that’s where I feel Seymour’s got something over us. The innate, misread poetry of our collective consciousness is pervasive in his entire life. Maybe this is less of an introduction. Less of a poem even, than a eulogy for Seymour Glass - the most delicate man who ever lived.
He threw a stone at the one girl he truly loved, as we drew stick figures.
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 11:02 AM UTC
and in the corner, I hear the metronome click
I fill the kettle and yet still feel sick
my stomach thinks my throat's been cut.
but I cannot eat.
I cannot compete with or beat the metronome.
It steals the minutes of the day and all it does
is tick and click and tick away.
I want to say why don't you stop, but it catches me and mops another minute up.
I pour some boiling water in my cup and forget the tea,
the metronome has done for me.
I see each second die and give a little less for me to live
and still it ticks.
It picks a moment when I blink and makes me think that all is well and the ticking is but just a shell upon the shore where timeless endless oceans roar
and then it makes me think some more
and ticks again.
I close the kitchen door
The metronome sat in the corner clicks right on, before too long my life will tick its last and in the shadows cast there will be another metronome that waits for me to tick into infinity, once more I see that endless face and in the place of midnight's dream
where I shall rest my weary bones
I know there'll be
more
metronomes.
Jun 18, 2016
Jun 18, 2016 at 3:22 AM UTC
‘How quaint,’ remarked Mistress Hora as she turned the afternoon on its head, ‘that you would consider time to be a linear construct.’
‘Positively post-historic,’ agreed Master O’Clock, nodding his head in perfect synchrony with the orchestra that played inside his ear. Today was Waltzday (or so he had named it), an interminable reminder that atomic metronomes particularly those of Viennese manufacture were not to be trifled with.
‘Be assured, my dears, that this fancy is a passing one and exists only as a fleeting extemporaneous distraction,’ our Mistress continued. The first year students breathed a collective sigh of relief. ‘Now, I want no clumping, no running ahead, and NO helical improvisation. When yesterday’s fish and chips come wrapped in tomorrow’s newspaper it gives our school a most unfortunate reputation.’ The class chortled as one. ‘Most importantly, please remember to take your pocket guide.’
I reached for my bedraggled copy of _The Theory of Chronometrical Fluidity: Compressed Edition_ and wrung the pages out. I had failed badly at applied clepsydrics and my cousin Widget wasn’t letting me forget it. From behind the glass, I spotted her playing a furtive game of Gregorian and by the look on her face February was winning. I blew her a lemniscate to grab her attention. She scowled, looked up from her losing streak and giggled when she saw me spiralling in her direction. ‘Good luck,’ she spiralled back.
Miss Hora flexed her wrist and glanced at her temporal transponder. ‘You will be marked on cuneiformity, consistency, and rate of continuance. Now be off with you. Tempus fugit!’ With a flick of her bejangled fingers she opened the S.A.N.D. grates. I held my breath and jumped.
Dec 9, 2019
Dec 9, 2019 at 5:03 PM UTC
I cannot burn for you in silence any longer.
The comet from which you started from,
Is spilling out of my veins,
You fire starter.
My thoughts are incoherent as I recall the explosion,
From which our lucid dreams joined together;
Holding hands, dancing under skies of ash
Nostalgia --
It was not snow that our footprints marked,
But it was the remains of,
Time we couldn't get back and,
Silences that wouldn't ever be filled.
All the misunderstandings exploded from caverns.
And here we are,
Two oblivious metronomes
Loving at the wrong times
And the wrong places
I love you.
Apr 5, 2015
Apr 5, 2015 at 12:03 AM UTC
She was a rest in a bar full of staccatos.
She was the note played pianissimo and the key that didn’t sing.
She had no forte in her soul, her steps were slurring phrases.
This girl was the music of a broken string.
Hers were the fingers stiff and cold; and the lip plate never kissed.
A metronome of self-doubt always ticking in her ears.
Never allowed a change in tempo, never shown to spread her wings.
Singing lessons from the deaf for 15 years.
The other was a pickup note, anxious to play the tune.
The dancer skipping steps up ledger lines.
The crescendo of passion, the diminuendo of a lullaby,
This girl no blaring trumpet could outshine.
But though her eyes were made of stardust her heart pulsed slowly, portato.
No accompanist, no duet, no conductor to keep the beat.
Her cheeks stung from the disguise, her worry slowed her, legato.
Compensating for loneliness with quick tempo deceit.
But, like broken triads, fate had it the two would somehow fit.
Drawn together as tied notes, destined to play their piece.
One so controlled by the orchestra, the other yearning for a duet.
The enchanting harmony within them had always burned to be released.
They played as one instrument, arpeggios overlapping in a heavenly key.
Swinging in synchronization, the melody swam magically through the night.
No longer controlled by metronomes, no longer stuck singing solo,
Forever, together, their own sheet music they would write.
- p. winter
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 7:42 AM UTC
My eyes hurt from all the crying i have yet to do
I've been holding them in
diamonds grating my eyelids to shreds
i want smooth pearls on my face
but i am afraid that if i let them go
my grip on sanity will follow like sheep
darkness will drink it down like wine and have its way with me
should i open a vein or my tear ducts?
which will hurt more?
all i can feel is pain clinging to every ***** for dear life
i can taste it dripping from my teeth
i sense my tears
i sense my blood
both clicking like metronomes in my skull
the hope i keep grabbing at is air that teases my fingers
if i keep falling from the sky I'll surely hit hell one of these days
Mar 27, 2011
Mar 27, 2011 at 12:28 PM UTC