"operatic" poems
---
the raw
wounded words in
Braille awaiting
a tender, gentle touch
waiting for
a voice
the silent ones
stare upward at the sun
their eyes streaming tears
notes that resonate
they fall into uncaring soil
silver seeds screaming
with none to listen
do they not listen to us?
the fortunate with full
rich operatic tenors
---
i have heard them
the two words as eloquent
as a simple "i love you"
those two words?
HELP ME.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 1:21 AM UTC
<>
**”To dream by the oak and awake by the sea
when August has ripened and turned Jubilee
you must enter dominion of summer's delight
and live in the rapture of candescent light
Oh to live and to love one must first learn to kiss,
the kinetics of summer, with eternal bliss.”**
~from vienna bombardieri’s poem, “Kinetics Of Summer~
(with her kind permission)
<>
First verse pinpoints accurate, this,
my spot!
by oak and sea,
my precise longitude and latitude, where my summertime
eyes open to receive the gift of morning’s light, observing
the conjunction of land, hard by the sea, the land-ed avian gentry
and sea~sailor birds interacting, sharing the uprising currents,
for sport and observation, travel and pleasured sailing,
these “Masters of the Sky can fly for hours (or days), while barely flapping,” and this verse stuns, and
my shock,
at these, her words
my breathing is gasped and grasped
by oak and sea, for so it be,
this is where
my morning’s operatic scrum, ballet and dance hall hullabaloo,
my diurnal natural choreography is performed,
while slow sipping my very heated first coffee
it was here
that I learned to love more easily,
for the kinetics of summers trio of sun, sky, and moderate breezes,
lulled the turbulence of my disheartened lives into an easier
order, the world~surround, a living, breathing exercise that
warmed the spirit, cooled the soul, and spoke without uttering
a single word,
here dear person, is the where and the when,
the comfort of the natural-blanket
that enwraps, covers, cherishes the atmosphere entire,
containing the healing elixirs and protective ointments,
that remove the
plaque of life’s accumulated injuries, slights and scar tissue
simply put,
here I breath freely,
here I see with clarity
here the infusions of
living in nature, prolongs,
restore, remind, enliven
and enhances,
the intermixture of
body and soul
here in actual deed,
the kiss of summer bliss
upon
my tiring cell’s walls,
are resurrected even unto the nuclei,
by the warm breath of sun life and sun light,
and the breezes of salty sweet caramel air
and under their loving, combined-dominion
am I
resurrected and will yet sense,
one more Jubilee again
as I lay dreaming
by the oak and the sea…
Aug 2, 2023
Aug 2, 2023 at 4:05 AM UTC
i subsist on verbs
and postulate on chords
apostrophe
a symphony of synonomy
a chorus cacophony born
in hymns
and antonyms playing
on violins
paper pen
a concerto operatic
absurdity!
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
"io sol uno."
-Dante, Purgatorio
There I was,
the comic-tragic star of my own motion-picture,
bold beneath the springtime Italian sun hung high
--a heavenly fixture,
illuminating the gold-leaf enframed frescoes in
kaleidoscopes of colours,
baking dry the pigeon droppings upon the flagstones
they smothered,
where I, in all my self-serving recreation,
posed proudly in a costume of my own creation,
an operatic villain clad in a billowy blouse of black,
the Campanile Tower like a sentinel behind my back,
as movie cameras panned and zoomed,
paparazzi photographers capturing me
and freezing me,
in all my wicked, medieval glory,
floating and gloating in the dank aroma of the Venetian seas,
*"I'm the shining star!
--Look at me, look at me!"*
-the super-special star I always knew I'd be,
a painted parody,
a harlequin of displaced passions
for all to laugh at and see,
before slipping silently
into the ornate basilica,
dim and dark as night,
thanking Mother Mary (for nothing) as I sparked
a votive candle's light,
not really sure or caring
where my life would lead,
just as long as the Azure Queen
shed Her Grace on me,
me,
me,
...until I fell
and fell
to the mockery of a home
I made in Hell,
hard and forever and fast,
the only fool left alone in my solo cast,
adrift with no direction,
****** and lost,
me and my frivolous theatre,
squandered an an extravagant cost.
_____________
"io sol uno" means, "I, myself, alone."
This poem is a true-life story.
__________
See the Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy:
http://www.carfree.com/design/pix/sqlg110venice_piazza-san-marco.jpg
Sep 13, 2010
Sep 13, 2010 at 11:01 AM UTC
St. Teresa swoons to herself.
The angel’s impish face laughs
At her pain.
Bernini’s operatic sculpture bound
Behind bars.
Perfectionism, restorationism,
OCD.
Outside, a gypsy woman begs
For centimes.
Inside, scaffolding dims Teresa’s glow.
Art sacrificed to the future,
Content to die in darkness.
A monk dozes in his rosary.
Recitation of dreams.
No legend in the sacristy:
Teresa’s book remains
Unread, dull behind glass.
Ecstasy of love: her path toward God.
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 8:20 PM UTC
Have you ever heard those flat harmonies of death, where operatic assertions resound throughout damp and ancient crypts of macabre folklore?
Time is slowly running out, and the flame of life is flickering in the winds of captivating finality.
Although haunting screams are like echoes which transcend fatty spreads of digestive mediocrity, the stalagmites and stalactites of gothic caverns display their ***** features which defy rational explanation.
Feel the depths of soulless forests as they chant messages of reconciliation amidst tangled weeds and branches of self-stimulation.
Amitriptyline can facilitate sleep at the end of an indulgent evening.
S
Feb 25, 2014
Feb 25, 2014 at 11:56 PM UTC
What exactly would you get
if writers changed the things they wrote
If painters changed their style
And singers butchered every note
Romance books by Stephen King
Horrors told by Suess
Comedic plays by E.A. Poe
And **** by Mother Goose
Dali paints like Monet
Monet paints like Degas
Van gogh would hang his brushes up
And go and detail cars
Michael Buble singing screamo
Operatic stuff by ****
Yoko Ono would seem right in tune
It's enough to make one sick
I hope it never happens
It would change things quite a lot
But you know, I think that **** by
Mother Goose could be quite hot!
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
We are all dealing with it together
sitting on these chairs side by side.
Therapeutic Counselling; it's that general motion
that lonesome melancholy
Grieving people flocking together
likened to the Vietnamese phrase
'Same same, but different'
And every now and then,
Someone, quiet and
unassuming will
whisper words
That strikes
a chord
In your
heart
We're no longer playing those
single notes on repeat
Blame, pain, hurt and defeat
It resonates so deeply
A whole symphony erupts
In your lost thoughts
Dvořák final moments,
Notes cascading down your face.
Eyes wild, eager and hungry for more
tears, mingled with a melody of vulnerability of the human race
Beethoven Fidelio- an operatic shuddering possession. Body breaking, mind
astrewn. Rhythm of rapidly
crushing sanity
Tchaikovsky's Sixth
white keys masquerading as happiness overlaying the sound of
sombre black keys striking suffering
and grief and everything else in-between in the greying colours of your mind.
Music of your
stricken heart lost in
the underground,
In these chairs next to you
Woman who also grieves
With a warm embrace around your body
Our wet shoulders
Absorbing the sounds of your dying souls
Until we're playing a single courageous lullaby once more
Heal heal heal
And heal we shall
Apr 3, 2017
Apr 3, 2017 at 5:06 PM UTC
The stark realization that you're not here but rather, you were here in this bed, in these sheets, these arms....it hits me like a wave of lightning.
Tears turn to snow, fears turn to a numbing glow, and I miss you... Yet I know the rising operatic voices of the symphony of hope that plays in the background of my life's video game will rise higher than the brightest sunset and deepest tidal wave...because ironically, you miss me too. Through all my faults and accidentally elbowing you in the stomach and growling at you just because I know you hate it....you still miss me. How, I don't quite understand, and no matter how many times you try to show me, I'll still never get it, I'll just be mesmerized by the rave lights dancing in your eyes pulsing to the beat of my jack rabbit heart. Why can't we slow? Why can't we insist this isn't real, that we are going to wake up, why can't we agree to pinch each other to prove that reality is indeed upon us, that awakening to smell the roses is better than dreaming about them? Yet I find myself amidst the ardour of their smell and realize it is in fact an olfactory experience, and not a shift of the bored, school-ridden mind. Yes, you are real, far away- 1700 miles, in fact- but you are real; my fingers could touch a screen against your digitized fingerprints and somewhere, some way, you'd feel something pressing back gently as the dew. Because I'm here. And I love you.
And I don't want us to end. Ever.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
A poem is built with sounds
Liberally littered with alliteration
Rhyming reason
Aspiring assonance
Up metaphorical mountains.
Each letter plays its part.
A cast of cascading chords
Making mystical music
For the discerning ear.
Operatic musicals from the Muse:
A crescendo of noise
Or sometimes
Whispers in the winnowing wind.
I write because I must,
Because I need to
In answer to
The Call.
Paul Butters
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 4:13 AM UTC
saying **** off* seems so much more
easier when you're petting cats....
they just say it for you...
there he is, Quarus,
the operatic singer nearing sunset,
200 variations of a mulling of meow,
i end up calling him Orbison Rufus,
the ginger Roy of Peckham -
he basically meows lazily like Roy
singing... as said / i.d. (id est): the umbras
or umbrellas - counting the shadows'
version of Apache's yawn: ah-woo ah-woo
ah-woo nagging the reflex...
gave them the yawn and gave them 1950s
America... Billy the Kid talking to the king of
Specs... hank marvin.... cheese grater
with those teeth... dozen cows buckling with
the herding in while the dog carved a feel
for religion in the translation of the Vatican
from coliseum into football requirements...
the movies were great in the 1950s, just after
the technicolour... petting cats was never such a thrill...
the operatic meow, onomatopoeia from echo
in a cave to knock-on-wood...
200 variations of the knock
and 12 whiskey shots downed
while playing poker... 12 cowboys
1 Milwaukee and 30 Turks... classic Tarantino...
i said the Apache yawn... i never said giving
out smoke signals...
Quarus my ginger is demanded as having laughed...
he's Roy Orbison with the meow,
pretty much lazy...
looks like a murmur when he tries singing,
pretty woman, trolling down the street,
Gucci, Chanel, and everything in the scrapheap of lobotomy,
as is Paris necessarily mentioned: chiselled
white collars... Roy knew before Elvis...
the trick came with sunglasses,
and the gluttonous slur of the half-opened mouthing
for subsequent mouthing it off...
no amount of cheese in French could ever
charter the success of the cheeses added to cheeseburgers
with the milkshakes, which were plainly Dutch
laughing cows named Novices....
quick-melts and some said:
dreadlocks of string-yellow Gouda pulled
for a hippies' worth of Chinese chugging down
a pint or two, for worth of gag and the slim mascot;
the Chinese never taught Cannes arithmetic
of the thumb through to pinky...
i don't know how they taught counting
with their complex ideograms, they never taught
arithmetic give their encoding...
they taught pure math.. they never taught the simplest
of assurances... meaning so few of them became bankers.
Aug 15, 2016
Aug 15, 2016 at 11:21 PM UTC
My first glimpse of
Operatic joy occurred
March 12th of years past.
In their foolishness,
They allowed me a go
At an open vehicle of
Two wheels
that went as fast as I wanted,
Where I wanted,
For however long I wanted.
I would bike away in my dreams
As they mounted assaults in life,
I couldn't help but feel invulnerable
Upon my nimble ride.
Yes O yes,
I still cruise to this day.
My freedom is mine
Forever to behold and make.
Apr 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019 at 12:14 AM UTC
The audience, silent, took a breath in unison
Included in the orchestra was every instrument imaginable
Banhus and Gadulkas played folk and polkas
The brutish brass, bodyguards and protectors of stringed melodies
Included in the orchestra was every instrument imaginable
A concert harp, plucked by fingers long, smooth and sharp
The brutish brass, bodyguards and protectors of the woodwind class
Saxophones provided a melancholy lilt, the timp was traditionally built
A concert harp, stroked by running fingers, smooth and sharp
Every sharp and flat note was passed through the throaty reeds of oboes
Saxophones reminiscent of ‘jive’, the timp in its size had nowhere to hide
This exhibition of musical traditions played late into evening with no intermissions
Every sharp and flat note accounted for, motifs carried whispers of folklore
Banhus and Gadulkas, swapped stories with bassoons and bagpipes
The exhibition had finished, piano keys rested, every note has its operatic death
The audience, silent, took a breath in unison
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 8:56 PM UTC
first musical memory
playing Mary Poppins
over and over on my portable suitcase
phonograph
not convinced that
a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
went over to my friends house
to play Barbies
heard B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
on her record player
began my life long
love of rock music
grew up attending a Southern Baptist church
if my faith continues to evolve in and out of specific creeds and dogmatic beliefs
right arm will never fail to involuntarily rise
towards the Heavens
whenever i hear
How Great Thou Art being sung
parents were in their late 30's
by the time i was born
was exposed to big band music
show tunes
mom's favorite
French operatic singer Edith Piaf
Riverview Elementary
in music class
taught how to do The Hustle and The Bus Stop
to disco records
got to bring in
on Fridays
love of guys with
long hair
blame
on the big hair
bands
the 80's
the 90's
such a kinship to the dark depressing sounds of grunge
believed Scott Weiland
Kurt Cobain and
Jerry Cantrell
plagiarized my thoughts
mad or need to clean
my house
the 2 often go
hand in hand
heavy/nu metal blaring
at maximum volume
Currently
am at a crossroads
need of direction
helps me to undergo the deep soul searching
inecessary
major life changes are required
give myself vehicular therapy,
driving around Wilson Lake
symphonic classical sounds from the radio
surprisingly
maybe not
blaring
maximum
volume
brainstorming
my options
to the
music
overheard
ppl say
they wished that
their life
came with
a soundtrack
Mine does.
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 6:07 AM UTC
Sea captain who brings with him an air of comfort,
first mate, confetti egg shell,
metal-framed reservoir.
Cradle my head, pull my hand,
Stand.
Solve the equation for me. Don't.
Be my carriage horse. Roam free.
Burn the papers. Lock them away.
Join the feast. Serve us, **** the beast.
Begot, begetter
A stain-glass window, more like a painting
wet with thinner.
Broken calculator, hard-to-getter.
Man the weather--man the ship. Don't, I can do it myself.
Hideous, antique bird-feeder
favoring the magpies above all and doves the least.
Join the feast. Let us leave the little
beast alone, they've done nothing truly bad! because
Just a little cut doesn't hurt.
As long as the blood doesn't spurt.
As long as Sylvia is my dead friend.
As long as you're an indescribable friend,
always there among the bramble
of the old flower field, abandoned long ago.
In the 30s.
Sea captain who brings sun, my
first mate of all singing first mates, of
all operatic dancers.
Dance with me.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 12:41 PM UTC
Early morning wind,
Reflection,
Sparkles the soft dew,
Operatic larks croon,
Silent fading moon,
Young minds occupied,
Triumphant,
Eyes glare,
Noise,
Iron carriages unaware,
Relinquish the thought.
The great deity has chosen,
Now,
Friends of the morning depart with a frown,
No knowledge,
No pain,
No thoughts of why,
Onward from mortal life,
Unto paradise they safely fly.
----------------------
Oct 9, 2009
Oct 9, 2009 at 10:57 AM UTC
Inside, Your cancer's beating heart
My ******* shakes, dirt dust gone
I swipe the sand away. For every ounce of ****
Laughing out meaty red raw steaks and size zero thighs.
- For everythingsobad. You rattle my dream box with your sweet blue face and your gauges for neither being an idiot or being human. Too cute of you booboo. Captivity claws at you, you big bafoon, intolerant, shuffling your predicates back and forth during your 12am nonsensical ******** So long as it doesn't interfere with your curfew.
Like soggy altered-state popcorn. Your butter catches more flies than knives, the inauthentic gestures spattering over the rhythms and rolls of your fingertips is torture to watch. Kitchen countertop influenza. A tired dictionary of sad words, poor misfortunes, tired eyelids, silty and sandy crusty inside corners of the eyes
.rearing privilege
countertop crawlers. inaudible coos used by muses who can't keep their musings from tangling the long distance dial tone soaring through the ears like an Italian operatic melodrama. A horse, three brides, and a funeral. One woman, a sick child, blindness, blinding caused by toxins of the body stuck inside your gelatinous fishlike eyelids. Where's there an eye bib and a lance when you need one? A nifty electric toothbrush shank with extra reach and plaque protection. You're the kitchen sink they threw in, a budget meeting with a data analysis staph infection. A government where nobody wins. All the kids grow up with thin skin and an aorta with no ventricles in it. It's like the cynical prison system that we had to survive in our 8th grade basement dungeon. Thundering, curmudgeons drugging sluggishly, **** teen thugs. Preteen pornstars sluicing cash through their meaty canals, ******* the ******** and ******* the back bare in a messy afternoon of **** ******* Crusty infectious rumors made worse by brothers and moms, eating handfuls of Norco just to keep the family strong.
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
Shadowic heroic ornamental's, false breed's cometh as incense breather's betwixt lively instrumental's. Macrogram plaza's to abrahamic venue's. Caller's calleth upon themselves to saveth what is not theirs;
Morning breath, to winter's dew, hath thou been born yet? Is the baby yet due?
Constant pain's to loss taken gain's maketh brain's and vein's out of organically made flesh; becometh thine own creator, thou creed of selfishness. Anchor heavy soul dragged away by chain's of past forget-not's, wherein the ground stayeth hot to ruin moronic window's.
Maketh thy bed of silvered spring's thy own rusted medieval pillow; thou grand ol' operatic theme, thou patriarch to a dream, Art ourn day's but a whisp of a second's last?
Thing's hath cometh to the listening one, the earth's spinning to fast; the mechanism's now begun.
©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Prison writing's
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 2:18 PM UTC
You with your post-primitive hair
and your eyelids
stop teasing
we're all in on the secret
though mum
ten times i've told you
in operatic tones
ten times i've curtseyed
before you a rose in my teeth
my heart is all stomach ache
with regret
opportunities for truth squandered
polite smiles and pleasantries
today let's speak free
May 7, 2018
May 7, 2018 at 12:31 PM UTC
All yearling spring birds far from distant home,
Xanthic in Gothic gospels soot and yolk,
Where's one's soft spoken voice to calm me on the phone?
Formidable pulses,
The danger of convulsion's spread on like buttered oil!!!
Enormity soil's the defendant delirium...
Such agnostic aquariums stinkingly similar upstate!
Broken lives to sunset drive,
Specimen speckles,
Forcible tassels hover one's decree!!
Litigious locust's buzz creepingly,
Indecently exposing all's funk!!!
Concauctions of fake adoption's,
Concievers break locks off trunks!!!
Omit me out of this obdurate oasis,
Wherein one feel's spacious,
Free to cometh and goeth!!!
Freedom doth thou know?
Operatic Mrs and Mr's,
Minuets for thy ridiculed wishes!!
Ponderer of newness,
Cleaner's as thy tub spills over,
Thy heels click together just to get thy kicks!!!
Hit the streets thou feathered bird of no beak,
Thou tally marker of no means!!!
Foreman to thy own people's idea's,
Nourish me with a new novice,
Nurture me with heartbrake hotel,
Buildeth me a standing ovation of a one love palace!!!
Brave heart fairytale,
Doth thou stand to move about?
Listener of radio tunes,
Art thou close??
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Sep 25, 2015
Sep 25, 2015 at 8:50 AM UTC
Time's clock ticking, drops
infinity into the rust of bedside tables.
In Bed-Stuy, in D.C, dear Baltimore. And you too,
Ferguson.
East Coast warriors raise high heavy heads.
Break loose shackles, blushing muscles. Veins
of ancients pump through us.
Now we cry for peace. Resilience and time
*********** out from present pleasures. T.V screens.
Longing hours contemplating
forgotten dreams. Nightmares,
trickle blood out of nosebleed section patrons.
An operatic multitude of greed
and insanity. Corrupt millionaires
spit down on struggling, stuttering
lost and alone
actors, poets
the good politician.
The neighborhood bully weeps after swatting a fly,
and immortality feigns existence. Be here
now death, let them know the coming of peace,
spiraling black holes
of emotion and pride and dead boys.
Broken time continuous, and hearts.
9-11, 2001 rocked a nation,
what rocked you?
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 9:49 PM UTC
How will you know
When you pass through a forest
If your eyes are
Glued to the road
How will you see all the life
That abounds
If your eyes are
Always closed
How will you hear
All the sounds in the air
How will you witness
The beauty that’s there
If you can’t spare a minute
For the red breasted Linnet
Or the little green Finch
And her operatic pitch
Or just for a moment
Stop to admire
The dappled twig arbors
And the great blue sky
Heaven has spilled out
All of her flavors
And all of this beauty
Is just yours to savor
If you stop for a second
The Larks song is pliant
Her cantor an echo
That her fledglings can follow.
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 6:11 PM UTC
out of nowhere i see an icon i only thought existed in my prolonged dreams
go-go boots, striding down streets that are immortalized in 1980's plays
almost every song that comes on my hand-held robot croons like something from **** Bill" - operatic, righteous, and honest
sights of beginnings and new beginnings on a small screen
the air between my mattress and the wall rumbles as we grow together again
Dec 18, 2015
Dec 18, 2015 at 12:48 PM UTC
*Kinetic waves of sweet water blessings , steaming blacktop
thoroughfares , trickling from gutter caps , rushing from downspouts , tapping my bedroom window like a childhood friend calling me to venture out
Petrichor melodies , Sun glistening Red Tip hedges
Wetted , diamond zoysia gardens
Culling roadside berries with cool naked
feet , with operatic fantasia rumbles the ubiquitous ' Thunder Roll ' , Blackbird gaggles resume their familiar treetop chorus in the ebony sky retreat of the afternoon Chattahoochee Summer heat* .......
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 1:33 PM UTC
We loved you
Pumpkin pie
And you
Bahzie boy
My bridge to the
Equine kingdom
Mitten, you made
My wife like cats
Begins a tragedy of three
A tale of other kitties
Stanley wandered too far
A tragedy of traffic
Babad not as far…
Both waited for us
No one wants to die alone
But still, we’ve been blessed
Goldie, I’m glad
You loved me
Little dog with
A heart too big
Thank you, Sue
For trusting us with Trudy
What a lucky man I am
To garner such love and trust
And of course, biggie guy,
He who once was named Hunter:
Gunther.
(Inset sadness here)
Chessy taught responsibility
With insulin shots at 6 & 6
Tristan y Isolde
(Stanley and Zolda)
Operatic lives lived
As comedy/tragedy
And, et-hem; yes
Even you, Ms. Berry
Past denizens
Of Chateau Flobo
Let’s not not leave out
The current cohorts:
Free spirit, wild child
Lucky Ducky
Biggie boy found you
You adopted us
Ms. Black-in-the-box
Moved herself in
And Fred—well,
Fred is just being Fred
They all found us
Not the other way around
From a big family,
We’ve loved/love a big family
May 24, 2019
May 24, 2019 at 7:24 PM UTC