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Robert C Howard Jul 2013
Poor Viktor Hartmann!
All that remained of his towering soul
were visions pressed on to paper
hanging in a St. Petersburg gallery.

Mussorgsky advanced his lumbering frame
along the gallery halls
searching for his lost friend.

Sonic images formed in the composer’s mind
singing replicas of Hartmann’s icons:

        An old castle,
        Children quarreling,
        An ox resisting the yoke,
        The Great Gate of Kiev.


Mussorgsky’s notes sound and vanish
as ephemeral as life itself -
passing into the ether only to live anew
with each successive performance.

      Viktor lives!

October,  2006
Robert C Howard Mar 2015
Poor Viktor Hartmann!
All that remained of his towering soul
were visions pressed on to paper
hanging in a St. Petersburg gallery.

Mussorgsky advanced his lumbering frame
along the gallery halls
searching for his lost friend.

Sonic images formed in the composer’s mind
singing replicas of Hartmann’s icons:

        An old castle,
        Children quarreling,
        An ox resisting the weight of its cart,
        The Great Gate of Kiev.

Mussorgsky’s notes sound and vanish
as ephemeral as life itself -
passing into the ether only to live anew
with each successive performance.

      Viktor lives!

*October, 2006
Included in Unity Tree - Collected poems
pub. CreateSpace - Amazon.com
Martin Narrod Mar 2017
Heaps of her across the deserted plains, oily fingers reaching up and over the horizon until all of the numbers fill her pockets, her father worried, and her muses covered with goat-head's thorn. Where does she start to fuse her needs with the weapons in their suburban corolla of lilacs and wanton redolence? It's the opacity in her finger nibs and the dozens of names she felt closing over her legs sideways, until she awakens in the night to take the blood dripping cotton tissues off of her face, off of her bed-side dresser table. She can't even paw forward or undress her wetness in haiku. Everyone she knows doesn't know her. Everything she's seen, doesn't seem to be there for her anymore. That's the trade they told her to barter for, the golden seals and vitamin needs she's gobbling up by the palmful every morning by seven.

Seven for the circus or the mimes, seven for the cloves hanging from the door and seven for the queries that strike back her abcesses and cost her seven by the quart and seven for the plastics. Seven dancing backwards towards a rook or a *****, seven inside her chest playing guitar with David Bowie, seven at the doggerel, and seven for the stitch and the obtuse- only a creature of seven might go for her, in a spot of doves, crank, and soda it is poison, seven is her ***** line, her sexuality, her sinfulness, and her latitude over and over again. Seven makes her want for tomorrow, seven takes tomorrow and throws itself up against the wall, pledging a game in the summer, seven to a trip of caramel and dukes, seven for the prince and the painting of the two of them, seven for the winter, and for the shadows that stretch curiosity past the breath of a summons', seven for the day and seven for the evening, seven scratches her ears and pulls out her hair, seven is the ring and the blue phantom buried somewhere far, far away, green is what's left, but seven knows which way the rain comes and who is going to follow it through.

There is a numbness that radiates on the fringe, a tickly discomfort not even a narrator could let out or down to a name on the mountains near the **** plateau that conquers her nuance, and shakes the both of them to core of the fight. This is not a flag that costs us in coins or in dollars. This is the worry chiseling our shapes and our buttery hips, a stacked set of crazy in a photograph off the leash of only a few. And it calls them to the night when it's only three of us left, until every cord is untied, until every verb is set in its caste, or ringing out to the tremolos of rapture, and the musicianship of pepper-jacked sneezes in the ambers and umbers that although startling, we've all learned to convert our averages in order to swing under the storm, and baby each of us with an elixir of myriad captures, images, and violent abuse.

While the words can yield, and the festivities can hoard each of the simple new experiences against travels of women, and pictures from Mussorgsky riling up soft drinks and evocations towards the center where all of us sometimes will let ourselves, let loose. Something horrendous and cold plugging into the sugars, something quiet, nearly a friend of reminders, crustaceans and ocean making this top-down beach of faces for all to shake and roll with or set forward a cacophony of abuse. Until in a breath she calls for the infinite intuition sheltering her and our window from the pain of misuse.

That is the photograph where we have been looking to live, here is the memory we spent our minds trying desperately to relive in the shade and in the snafu, against the bark and the piano keys treating our rise. Within our skin and our pupils, our silver bookends and/or the mammals we don't use names for but for whom we've been introduced to.
Dr Peter Lim Aug 2015
PAINTINGS
      

Paintings are the colours of music
Every stroke a note of harmony
Impressions of mysterious muses
Inscriptions of eternity.

Music without sound
Rapture of a grand symphony
Voice of sublime quietness
Quintessence of eternal beauty.

Modeste Mussorgsky breathed music
Into pictures at an exhibition
The twain embraced and waltzed-
Art’s most poignant and wondrous fusion.

What would earthly life be
Without the passionate kiss of beauty?
When words fail and the heart is weary
Beauty consoles in her infinite serenity.
NIL
if ******
who's never
ethereal in
our maiden
world yet
his sojourn
when grange
was his
attraction that
cogito heard
Mussorgsky on
Frontier March
while very
much inside
his hat
for our
generations alas
A Frontier March - 1938
Donall Dempsey Nov 2015
NIGHT ON A BARE MOUNTAIN

Time loses its way
in the dark

even I have been
erased

by what
I cannot see

unsure that I am
still me

I touch the tear
on my cheek

to reassure myself

I am: & that
the world is.

I whistle Mussorgsky
to keep a stiff upper lip

up.

Spring waits
at the top of the mountain.

I climb towards
the new dawn.
My friend got lost in the fog and the dark on a mountain but found herself in the dawn of a new morning. She suffered only from being very scared and very cold.
Alex Day Dec 2017
​WHAT IS IT YOU WANT FROM HER?
the sweltering hot of her eyes on me | her words on my neck like the Pacific Northwest shoreline, horizon bleeding into ocean | an endless life with her, my muse, and I, her rock | the touch of her fingertips on mine like a blue-bright fire, turning her ashes back to phoenix | a symphony in major key, a full marching band playing in 5/4 time, when she lets me brush her hair from her face | the light in her eyes will dance as we do

WHAT ABOUT THE PAIN?
what of the pain? I’ve felt the worst there is | give me a life filled with love and I will take the hurt, take the bitterness, take the Hardness and make it soft as i always have | give me a lover who will open Her arms to me and welcome my uninhibited adoration without hesitation and I will ache for her when she has gone | if I just get to touch the palms of her hands, Lord, I will be grateful for the heartache

WHO IS SHE?
she is the lighthouse and I am the ****** | she is the ****** and I am the lighthouse | or maybe she is the Siren and I am the seaweed through which she navigates to lure men to their death | she is the smell of hot asphalt after a summer rain, she is Spite, she is Greed, she is Bitterness, she is all-consuming | she is Rage and beauty and she encompasses me with her softness and I will adore her | her tenacity is earth-shattering, and if she must leave me, I pray she will grant me the honor of breaking me

WHAT IF SHE STAYS, WHAT THEN?
Mussorgsky’s Hopak will forever play in our home-- we will dance with agile, joyous togetherness through our kitchen, hands and faces covered in flour | my heart will know pain, will know ache, but nothing of longing | she will, I pray, wake every day knowing that she is the softest of kisses to the cheek, she is the feeling of sleeping on brisk summer evenings with nothing but a sheet to cover your feet, she is, in all her flaws, Holy, and Burning
Lawrence Hall Apr 21
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        T­he Great Gate of Kiev

                Mussorgsky’s The Great Gate of Kiev is no hymn to the
                people of Ukraine (telegraph.co.uk)

If there was never a Great Gate of Kiev
Except in Mussorgy’s triumphal hymn
There ought to have been, and there will be some day
Trophied with captured Putinista flags

For now

Wherever a Ukrainian enters Kiev
By rail or bus, or in worn-out army boots
He is the Gate, the Knight’s Gate, the Golden gate
With a chapel and the most wonderful bells

And the pictures at an exhibition
Will be ikons of Ukrainian martyrs
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2021
between too much wine
and a sensible glass
of whiskey -
  just two cigarettes -
    and in bed by midnight...
   (suppose i too hope in vain
and better lie to myself)

i only came across
   Balakirev because i was
reading
a Tomas Tranströmer
poem...
i didn't like it...
   Balakirev...
          somehow i quickly
found...
something more
to my taste...
Cesar Cui -
     kaleidoscope for
violin & piano (op. 50) -
but i haven't
heard of him prior...

tomorrow
i'll look up the rest
of them:
charles ives,
        john j. becker,
  wallingford riegger,
henry cowell,
  carl ruggles...
   all who i haven't heard of
before...

but that i have
heard of Rimsky-Korsakov
and Borodin
and... well who hasn't heard
of modest "night on bald
    mountain" mussorgsky
  (but only because
of that)
well.. looks like beside
cesar cui i have
heard of 80% of
    something:
  obviously not the entire
opus just like
i wouldn't expect...
    something or other...
it's terrible to write this
autobiographical
sketch...

   it would be so much
more to have the "time"
(patience?)
   to throw out
the television...
   starve myself from
this canvas of bypassing
editorial scrutiny
and listen to a good hour
or so of BBC Radio 3...
esp. on a saturday
at circa 10pm - 12am -

no... this is not
terrible important...
          it might be a vanity project
p.s. / n.b. or...
            
    sensible: enough
of tamnavulin by timid glug
until i get a hint
of

      (a) nose: a whiff
   of apple or toffee or honey
with marzipan / marmalade

(b) palate:
      mellow pear, creamy peaches
pineapple and some
demerara sugar...

      i'm no connoisseur:
   so i doubt whether or not
i'll pinch any of these supposed
rejoices of budding...

it's also not that terrible
that somehow i end up writing
about reading -

i'll slither into the bed
and end up claiming the constellations
with the same
predictability of: earphones
and Christopher Young's
Hellraiser soundtrack
(1 and 2)...

             so much for writing about
love and women
and "ideals"...
when i'm the one about
to cocoon myself with
a horror movie soundtrack
to nod off to...

it's not so terrible...
it's impossible to have to sleep
with anyone -
i tried to entertain sleeping
with a cat...
on the side... on a folded
arm...

         it's this seriousness
of a placebo-solipsism with
all the freedoms and...
well... routines...
       in fiction it might be
deemed a penalty to
be denied the chance
to father children...

i've seen it in the park:
men who invest in their children
hoping they might
become footballers... etc.,

terrible business... having children...
probably marriage to:
i suppose Frankenstein's monster
could find better outlets
to moan his existential qualms
over than: that i might
subscribe to mating...
courtship...
            
               i doubt i might enjoy
a Cesar Cui orchestral suite...
or that Beethoven could get away
with writing something
for only piano and violins...

it's not terribly important...
give it enough time and enough
monotony of the sea -
give it enough stubborn mountains
and enough...
of anything as highly sexed-up
as an insect's life-cycle...

        how else to pursue
life: the most belittling grandiosity
escaped (from time to time)
thus gravitation to
something resembling
   an automated purposiveness
of "veneer" of self-importance...

it's comforting that
     so little can be lived for
the purpose of solo -
i'm starting to appreciate
this little of everything...
probably more than it
could ever be allowed...

          it's absolutely necessary
to feel intact
at some point
    having to disappoint
death as the method statement...
and all that
without towing along
any homosexuality:

        for all its worth
an *** like Porsche leather /
peaches... **** like
a marathon milking "project":
yes, that all these prods
are intact: yet not
necessarily invested in...

         it would be enough
to master this supposed state
of "cowering"...
not having to invest in so much
expectation for others:
the most gentle variation
of apathy:
whenever breaking into
a trainee / novice critique
of an aesthetic -
an aesthetic that comes
as unconsciously as
a heartbeat /
bowel movements as:
music on first impressions...

how life can be made simple
is probably a focus
on a peacock's tail
of biases...
           without a clarifying
imperative...
it's not that important
to have an argument...

  notably:
if duality is animate...
  then a dichotomy is inanimate...
i want to burn orange
until it becomes brown...
nothing: concretely -

to listen to violins like it might
be an imitation
of a scuttling mouse -
or an itching scarecrow...

thought:
would it be best to curate
a cure for an itch by...
  scratching the sore inch diameter
or... pinch it away?

quirk... no... not here...
no thank you...
some things have to remain sensible:
i.e. a life lived
without having digested a
self-help book...
     3 years spent reading
a philosophy book: on & off...
between other books...

somehow always finding oneself
a persona non grata
when listening to a video
on: "self-help"...
             my self-help mantra?
placebo-solipsism...

the drifting in and out of:
off solipsism...
the eloquent quench of:
if by thought you could denote
either thirst or hunger...

i think i've settled all my
moral ought(s)...
          taboo: none, really:
i thought -
         ought i?
      i ought: thought, i...
    because of this punctuation...
like jazz and jigsaw
puzzles...
   or playing chess on
   houndstooth print...
(hahnentritt in german...
                          pepitka in ******)

the best cigarette is:
when it's smoked half away through...
extinguished...
then relit and...
      all that tangy smog...
and almost wet newspaper take
on: if hue could be a taste...

if rain could be fathomed
as sparkling i.e. carbonated water...
all this and so many
unimportant events in a life
that are never to be riddled
with a grandiosity of
children... labyrinth a tool too:
Mr. Minotaur...

there's curating the eyes
when the snow is falling
in a cemetery at night...
in the nearest convenience
of a star: via replica...
there's this ugly-beauty of
it being associated with indigestion
and sickly-sweetness -

there's also a memory
of childhood and... cotton-candy
and a stump that
was... but never really was:
a "pretend" throne...

as of yet i'm still bothered as to
how / why...
subjectivity is deemed
something / somehow less
than... the zenith that's a nadir
that's objectivity that's
the encyclopedic
             trivia / pub quiz
  regurgitation after regurgitation
of c.c.t.v. sat-nav *******
squeezing: juice-ups -
tease of tangy - not borrowed
from Irene a tangerine... etc.

such that:
i am subjected to...
willingly or not...
more things and "things"
than...
i am subjected to
the queen of england...
because of rain
i have to loan a mushroom
for an umbrella...
objectively:
****** weather...
subjectively...
it's not a science or a pet-peeve
project of regurgitating
sharpening objects...
that subjectivity is somehow
less than objectivity...
that there's this "magical"
right, objective cursor...
                  
i am subjected to much more
than what...: and because
objectivity will not allow
certain facets of the bare minimum
of a lived life...
how subjectivity is less
than objectivity is only
a gimmick for
how rhetoric is conducted...

      i am subjected to:
always the case...
given... how many instances
are there where: i object to...
      it's no less no more...

  for example:
eating an apple... objectively...
well...
but being subjected to:
a desire for an apple...
that's the whole sigma carousel
of intrinsic "paraphrasing"

last "thing" i want is
to be objective and of a "sound mind"...
via regurgitating facts...
by being a factoid surf:
any other noun and all
the misnomers available...

horrid world when seeing
a subject-object dichotomy...
                  notably: via rhetoric...
a language trap...
with it: all the sour notes...
even if it were the most fine
of a whiskey...
roughage...
   creases and bones...
                words like a cascade...

via a memory of a maxim:
Wittgenstein on the concept of
a thesaurus -
                            quiz me sore as
sorry: tautology...
otherwise a lessening in eloquence...
otherwise simpler:
a crimson burgundy -
   a red red...
if i were being honest
and i pinched a robe
of a bishop...
from a purple a blush of
cherry... vinegar (&) Bolshevik...
balsamic to allocate
the vinegar...
and working: auf:
           on the note of colour...

you know what might have
happened if a
Zukofsky talked alongside
a John Berryman...
                because it's so impossible
to be human...
to be human in the mediocre
range without
being either Cain or Abel
or Jesus to be
this drop of salt and ivory
and stink...
  to be human as regrettably:
no offense:
lived part and parcel...
  something to do
with electricians and
bus-drivers...
something authentic /
predictable...
then again:
if i were to be the sort
of corrosive juice
on the collective memory
fabric where
Elvis sits pretty...

                 getting better
at something doesn't help...
ask Samuel Little...
i guess he did come to late
for the whole 20th century
bonanza of celebrating
the offspring(s) of Cain...
        now for the king rat
and the art of scuttling toward...
if they get me post mortem...
only then...
sooner i with half a loaf
and enough pigeons
to **** on Trafalgar silly...
more blitzed up than...
a 1940s milkshake
of the Loon-do'un skyline...

that might pass on the name of
a Henry Neele...
        not that it might matter
for him... most certainly not for me...

that the 20th century is:
beside (having been) a lived...
this long exhausted: lineage of life:
"something" within
the confines of events...
otherwise just plain dandy
eventuality -
that pursued no:
clarity, clarity of judgement...
if was the biggest ask...

it overcame the i
he was lost to they...
me was never a my
who troubled
      this when and this how
and via sober
asked: who's who...
                 wafer tug at
the tragicomic tool of...
a face like a mask...
contorting the imbecile
toward....              a harvest
of sieved i.q. points...

    too profound i.e. not expected...
i suppose i might vote...
this whittle doodle o' mine:
   is that scrutiny of
forward 'inking.

— The End —