"percussive" poems
heavy, deep and dark.
louder, louder;
the twofold pounding
of clockwork respiration.
thud, (thud-thud)
goddess arms hang
into the abyss, like
dead weight.
depth obscures,
lesser life forms
meander on their own,
unaware of the wayward colossus.
/lonely/
a shroud of antiquity
suspended --
veiling the secret
of ages.
thud, [thud-thud]
percussive life
continues alone,
out of time.
evolving
longing
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 1:04 AM UTC
My friend and I talk about it
Neighborhood got decimated this year
One after another the corners of community are gone
We touch the elder memories
as one might touch a head in blessing
as loved ones pass
We linger longest over John
Found dead after ten hot days
by other-worldly hazmat crew
flanked by cruisers
with their special, yellow truck
and zipper bags
...found 'im
glasses folded neatly on the night stand
in his jammies
all tucked into bed
No one thought it strange
that strange young guy would die
already decomposing in his head
Lost
among his personal effects
his fleet of rusting cars
and half-assed projects
Deck tacked to garage
his herds of “pets”
Easy to pretend he wasn't really there
between jail stints or some imagined threat or theft
of crap
haunted by the shadows of his persecutors
caught in motion lights
and cameras' blinding evidence of
jungle-jumble and malfunctioning alarms
going off in the wind
Everyone's out to get his stuff
We could dismiss him--
mostly
sorta
...except for times
he mowed his grass at night
or hand-built “the lunatic tower”
just for mom
from scavenged scraps and
hammered hours
power-sawed
through the housing codes
and horror
of the neighbors...
...Such a special spectacle...
******* crazy-- John!
He was enough for one day at a time
like when
he flung that threatening bolder
on bilco doors
for percussive effect
"Get off my fuckin' property!”
(not using his “inside voice")
“Next time, that'll be your head!!
He announces his intent
to not get mad, behave himself
to call the cops on me instead
Fake-dialing
While his mother screams in dread
“John is off his meds!”
My phone is set to speed dial
911
____
“How did we miss this?
How did we not miss him those quiet days?”
How we miss him now
How quiet
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 4:18 PM UTC
We walk the smoke-thick winter street of sweet 'n' sour aromas
amongst a throng of oriental shaded faces (such gentle souls)
who crowd little pushcarts selling scallion pancakes.
Overhead, red talismanic paper lanterns bob, enticing us
to the tap of percussive chopsticks.
We sit in awe; snack on duck-tongue; roast pigs hang
glistening; fat-fresh, ready to fry.
Waiters wheel trolleys piled high with steaming shrimp noodles
past tables of golden oranges and watermelon seeds.
Our Chinese chef prepares shredded pork in garlic sauce.
He smiles and says:
"More guests means more happiness."
Mar 19, 2010
Mar 19, 2010 at 6:35 AM UTC
Inside the bunny suit
my ears are still small
and round, and percussive
sounds come to visit me
costumed in white muffles.
Inside the bunny suit
a bead of sweat itches
my nose to rabbit fidget
and wiggle-twitch where
my fingers can’t reach it.
Inside the bunny suit
a thin layer of nylon dots
inserts its silky self
between me and everything
I fumble to touch.
Inside the bunny suit
the outside world’s broken
up by a half-dozen holes,
and green strands fuzz the focus
of each fragmented peep.
Inside the bunny suit
probing orange lights
make kaleidoscope shapes
through those same cut
openings. They distract me.
Inside the bunny suit
I can smile at and feel
closer to the fantastic
creatures who surround me
in their own decorous skins.
Dec 18, 2010
Dec 18, 2010 at 6:17 AM UTC
I send this track
Out to the Universe
Praying its echoes
Reach the farthest corners of the Earth
To reach you
I want the melody
To seep into your skin
The synthesizer
To shake your ribs
Each percussive meter
Synced to your beating heart
And as the music fades
And the ethereal chimes
Tickle the silence
Imagine my fingers
Tracing your lips
Pulling you in for a taste of bliss
I hope this track
Transcends the airwaves
That my light
Enraptures you
And embalms you
In Affection
Jul 13, 2017
Jul 13, 2017 at 2:20 PM UTC
Darling you know i love it when you play the black chords
Let them echo through the house for a long minutes time
and show me the god in your fingertips
a lover's hand you have with that percussive beat
rumble those strings with a heavy heart
give the dead ivory a taste of your lip
the ecstasy, the thrill
the trill and timbre
the infantile touch of a player's soul
strumming through that sweet sound
It is my youth, my zenith, my dying wish
my every happiness
to hear your musical singing string,
'till the very end.
Feb 7, 2018
Feb 7, 2018 at 8:01 PM UTC
feel my breath
on your neck -
misty with an oxidized smile.
don't say no.
i cannot take more opposition
but across the universe,
my breath resonates like an unpitched percussive.
the sound is inaudible
but the sun in my mouth plays loudly
for no one to hear.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 2:27 AM UTC
Self-loathing, in all of its malignancy, whispers
"You're worthless, just like him!"
my chest constricts, my ribs prison to a heart
that refuses to pound its percussive rhythm
The summer's dying!
the summer's dying!
and I, I am a rose
shedding my bloom in protest
the winter's passing, my only hope
Songs of exodus soon fill the air as crows ascend
painting the horizon black like an empty womb
"They always go" I whisper "They always go"
their melody haunting to those of us bound to earth
"we must go now!" "we must go now!"
bright eyes gleam, as each one sings
"we must go now!" "we must go now!"
promising freedom to those with wings
Bending low and curling inward, I lay
as my petals fall down around me
fluttering about like broken wings
migrant hearts, like theirs need open skies
so I found my freedom in the letting go
Jul 30, 2014
Jul 30, 2014 at 3:20 AM UTC
Mystic percussive
sounds drifting
as
bare hands
pound the tabla
increasing rapidly
with reckless abandon
the triumphant frenzy
signifies
a jubilant freedom
Jan 27, 2012
Jan 27, 2012 at 7:20 AM UTC
Green giants swaying to a calypso melody
Cuban guitars nuance the springtime scenery
Beautiful Wisteria dancers and Dogwood musicians
Latino songbirds delivering ambitious acapella dreamscapes .. Caribbean percussive timbre in pitch perfect three point harmony ..
Mar 30, 2016
Mar 30, 2016 at 4:37 PM UTC
Transcendence and unity was always my friend
I know,
Something that doesn't exist yet always lingers
a man in black, everywhere, always filling cups
and know I'm staring into the face of that man though he no longer exists
There's an undiscovered idea or concept, nobody sees it but it's here
with me over my shoulder always
Do you hear those voices on the mainline when the shore is out
why do you see today, when not yesterday, was blind
a certain sense of paranoia, uplifting
Behind the lamp post on the corner there's the man in a black overcoat
and on the roof, over there
and in trees behind brick houses
everywhere
I see him
How can you escape these walls when captive men's lives linger on
Sighing again, it's morning, did you cry today?
Those headphones passive pass no mas but moreover we're dying
cerebral disconnect
everything changes
creativity dies when the keyboard intervenes
and the blackness of one turns into itself and everything dies before being reborn again somewhere else
somewhere different
Erratic thoughts but these are dying words when they come each night, the terrors
Is there anybody or anything anymore?
Resistance to life now is dull and over. Done.
heavy lungs still breathing but detached
Where the ghosts of Saturday night roam in pilfered streets
and numbed limbs crawling
re-percussive Robitussin and gushing percussion, oh the jazz-hall bells
swing la
swing
oh its yellow in nightlife fever fervor forever
Gábor!
Tell me these sweet dreams again
great white flags on the shoreline as the ships arrive home
and the war is done
Did I import the brown in past lives?
Jeer jazz man jeer!
and this wild hair is the sea, swim with me forever
the guiding hand on my wrist is not my own
the door slams shut in echo chamber corridors and the tension in the neck is incredible
but the end is never that, it's only the beginning in disguise
I am constantly haunted by my psychosis
Amphetamine dreams
and Sunday dawns
the hazy yawns
- to sleep
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 9:18 AM UTC
I would trade your season for mine,
But winter is more comforting
Than the flowers of spring.
Harvest the snow,
And there you have luxury.
The white sand of my country,
And the pure radiance of yours.
On the strings
We have slithers of ice
And polished brass
Is the wind.
Hear the percussive surge of river
Or the silence seducing empty roads.
We have found our orchestra of frosty season.
Conducted by currents in the sky.
Jan 8, 2010
Jan 8, 2010 at 7:28 AM UTC
I ask for direction but only the spirit knows,
the semantic is lost in one ritual or another subroutine.
We breath in violable biology to voice a movement
that joins u to me and together we point there,
somewhere without realizing that I consciously exhale.
A relaxed breath in but two ways out.
There is no committee nor panel of experts,
endless discussions, of morality of us all;
There is only me deciding how to exhale,
which way to breath out.
There is no wrong or right, only the slow,
controlled, submissive, submission vowels
or short, percussive consonants full of sound
and fury signifying the falling
golf ***** scattered on off-target greens,
a lawn of flamed bogeys.
A brief pause in silence aftermath, memories
of honored and vicious executioners
before I pick up the next eddie current,
the next randori in forgotten volume,
in brownian space, in distance maai,
in movements unthinkingly remembered.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 8:54 PM UTC
fragile and self absorbed I've spent a lot of time kneeling
but I've come to find honesty in admitting fear in the new things I'm feeling
there's something about moons and stars being beautiful but out of reach
that I've always found appealing
and I have drown in all my futile pursuits chasing whales into the ocean
but never with my written words, those pros are a dreamers innate commotion
emotional, combustible, percussive, explosions
I've survived a lot of falls and put my heart back together with duct tape
but somehow living always gives me just a little less than it takes
so my words now are few and chosen carefully
and my actions are my attempts at explaining those tangibly
every valentine's bouquet I'm sending
all the anniversary dollars I'm spending
each minute a loving ear I'm lending
but if two people are truly in love, there can be no happy
ending
Hemingway, that's from Snows of Kilimanjaro
an elegant reminder that we've one less day together with every new tomorrow
so I try and explain old emotions as best I know how
if only I could have known in those times the truths I know now
redundant, I'm a record with a deep scratch
tired, I'm the head of a burnt match
useless, I'm a diamond necklace with a missing clasp
bitter, and perpetuating the despair, never letting go of the holes unpatched
hopeful, I'm a dog kicked that keeps coming back
I've survived a lot of falls and put my heart back together with duct tape
but somehow living always gives back just a little less than it takes
I can see that in the wrinkles carving roads in my face by the mile
and I noticed that there's more lines where I scowl than where I smile
duct tape and regrets I've spent a lot of time kneeling
it's probably time to apolgize and stop reeling
but eating my own words sounds uncomfortably filling
so I guess I've said a lot of things that I'll never have the chance for repealing
somehow I've always sensed it since I was very young
that I would always be looking back as I rocketed forward
humming the songs that were already sung
reading old greeting card’s they've forgotten and feeling tortured
fragile and self absorbed I've got a lotta duct tape
survived a lot of falls without becoming fake
but somehow living always gives me
a little less than it takes
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 11:17 PM UTC
I need to go.
I am displacing
here.
Displaced Wednesday,
time to fast, not
for my health, not
for moral justice, not
to slow consumption, only
from dawn to dinner, a
lackluster way not
to restore dopamine, not
to suppress apetite
in some lateral, percussive
hypothalamus injury.
I fast in sync only
with voices and volume, doing
in mind emptiness.
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 8:37 AM UTC
Like the percussive beat of a drum
Ba-dum-dum
“Dumb as a post,” she says.
“Doesn’t know when to take her shoes off,” she says.
Because what are you doing, tracking dirt in my house
Under my roof
Unlike your friend who knew
When it was time to behave himself?
“You filthy slob.”
And I think, “What about Bob?”
A ****** ****** who was just so gosh-darn
Lovable.
And even if you haven’t seen that movie
You would know
That it’s the ones who can’t stand still
And who stick their hands in flames
And who grind their brains
For answers
Who make the world go round.
And round and round
She spun her snippy little tongue
Without even a break for air.
But who needs air when you’ve got sand
Filling up your lungs
In the arid desert.
They call it Death Valley for a reason.
I’ve never been
But I heard in the summer months
The temperature maintains a balmy 120 degrees.
I’ve been absorbing the heat ever since I could
Make heads and tails of her
Ba-dum-dum.
So here we are at round two.
She says it’s preferable to be sitting in one place
Because the jabbering jaw is where all the exercise comes from.
And the winner will be declared when there is no more ********
Coming out of the other person’s mouth.
Well that’s ********
I’m not sitting around waiting for you
To throw blades at my head
And expect me to just take it.
I also can’t fake it.
I need to get out of here, don’t you understand?
Your hand has abandoned the idea of holding mine
Long ago, I know.
It serves a more physical purpose now:
To make me regret
Standing up for myself.
Ba-dum-dum
She’s still going at it!
Not hard to believe,
Since she’s gotten half a life time of practice with it.
Ba-dum-dum
It’s gotten progressively less steady.
No longer the even pulse that I was able to
Drown out earlier.
Ba-dum-dum
There she goes putting emphasis
On things that don’t matter.
I’ll be heading towards the door now…
Ba-dum-dum
Let me just –
Ba-dum-dum
Can you move please?
Ba-dum-dum
I’ll take that as a “no.”
I sigh. Not yet at the point of resignation somehow.
Ba-dum-dum
MAKE IT STOP!
Ba-dum-dum
Ba-dum-dum-dummm
Jun 2, 2012
Jun 2, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
I heard the choir sing in the cathedral,
I watched the black busker smoke in the rain.
The words she writes are calm and cerebral,
her keyboard maps out our commonplace pain.
You can listen to the flutes in the leaves,
the percussive crack of ice in your drink.
I listen as your heart sounds a mantra,
persisting to live even as it grieves.
We can balance upon the ocean's brink,
a mineral spray, our unspoken Tantra.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 10:14 AM UTC
Resonating senseless
necessity,
percussive impulses;
floods of excess
skimming the surface.
That mysterious lust of gods
where the denouement begets the beginning.
Oh, majestic sweetheart,
let me have my indulgences.
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 5:47 PM UTC
Lust is the study of dance and retreat
The chase and the beat
Where souls move together, collide and complete....
And musicality crawls through our skin
So transparent and thin
Like the breath of a kiss that has yet to begin.....
Just like the thunderous beat from the drum
We pulsate and come
Apart at the seams like your cat's got my tongue.....
The music fades down so the silence can start
It's own form of art
And all that remains....
All that remains.....
Is the stone steady beat of my percussive heart.
Sep 10, 2010
Sep 10, 2010 at 6:16 PM UTC
You shake and you shiver and cry out for me
As you caress my neck with your lips.
You melt into me like the snow in the spring
And my shoulders can feel your snow's drips
Then the clouds open up and present their remorse
Recreating your tears with their rain.
Like bullets the first drops hail down on our heads
And commence their percussive refrain.
I pat your back gently and tell you with care
There need not be a reason for tears.
But the patter of water in puddles is loud
And I say only words you can't hear.
Bam! It hits me! They're fake! I know why you're sad
And the reason you cry is unclear;
You're not sad at all, your snow is not gone:
You cry only crocodile tears.
Jun 1, 2017
Jun 1, 2017 at 12:23 AM UTC
It quickly became apparent that not all was
as it once was.
The mouth which governed the wall
(which was twisted and cracked)
smiled,
and proceeded to
grind its teeth
to the beat of the
morbid drone of
the siren.
Each a percussive
slab of yellowing ivory,
chipped, curved;
a grizzled toenail.
Being torn off
may solve more problems
than it causes.
At the door:
A brushing noise.
If the mouth could see
how gracefully
I navigate the room,
it might be impressed
and let me out.
*Note to self:
Doors are best left closed.*
Jun 11, 2011
Jun 11, 2011 at 5:41 PM UTC
Every room has a din.
You just have to listen
hard enough.
This din was a spoken one,
like where actors mutter
"...rhubarb, rhubarb..."
Her steps made a percussive
clacking sound
that echoed from
wall to wall,
pervasive and acute.
But what truly stuck out
did so from only one side.
Her, the weird one.
Her, accident prone.
Her, the girl with
one wing.
In a room full of faeries,
she stuck out.
An entire people
who hid themselves by day,
and she
was sequestered.
Everything
twisted
down
in a
s
p
i
r
a
l
i
n
g
d
e
s
c
e
n
t
But what would you expect
from a girl with one wing?
Aug 21, 2013
Aug 21, 2013 at 3:42 PM UTC
there's anchors behind every sigh
to hold these bones in place,
and two black holes behind my eyes
that catch all spectral waves.
by faintest glare of candlelight,
I see into the soul;
the concentrated substance,
hidden deep within the folds.
time and space cannot exist,
I've rattled loose the cage.
forged in fire of molten mind
ive broken links within the chain.
tearing open doorways
to objectify my fate;
tethered bindings frayed to string,
still heaving dead hearts weight.
knots have tied my heart to yours;
keep true that steady beat.
percussive steps of progress
to invent a new machine
our blood is but the oil
to turn the gears within our chest
turn back the dial,
expose the key,
and love congeal the rest
Jan 16, 2013
Jan 16, 2013 at 10:29 PM UTC
This is real
This is true
I cut, reform, reshape for you
And though it hurts
With penknife sting
I hope one day
You'll accept this ring.
So trust me baby
Though I cause a fuss
I’ll work on past it
For the sake of us.
Lace my pain with percussive cussing
Swear care no matter how you fare
Taking turns, till, we in turn fail
End nearing, gasp through by breadth of hair.
So hold no breaths
And cry no tears
We’ll be there soon
Speak, breathe, forget your fears.
It's true our future’s cloudy
We're over 8 by 8 by 100 miles away
I daily **** up as you tuck in
Pledging, “Rest, I don’t jest figure eights.”
Numbers don’t matter.
And my senses, they’re surely wrong.
So why hold both eyes on you?
And ask the same for me, just as long?
It’s so we both go strain blind
Bind souls and minds together
Splatter glue hastily agreeing to this eternal song
Float handheld in this spaceless place
Disintegrating all the walls that fall upon us.
… Or those we need to walk through.
There, in fantasy, easily we go
Each kiss a taste of the love we share
That we only alone in our nakedness wear
It's clear I would put nothing on or over you
Or dare seek some other exchange
Because without this arrangement
There'd be nothing
Besides empty, pitted pangs.
Oct 22, 2017
Oct 22, 2017 at 9:54 PM UTC
I fell out of love with myself as others fell in, stumbling
Through the winter of my life in search of a body bag
Or the percussive clatter of bones beneath the façade of a porcelain doll,
Pretty & perfect with empty eyes to cast upon the world.
my body was made to be carved into something beautiful.
the dizziness threads in & out, veering in & out of consciousness,
my eyes are brimming with psychedelic stars.
I am alone, cold & wanting, awash in
the terrible potential for human connection.
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 7:22 PM UTC