"pianissimo" poems
Play me.
Play me like piano keys.
Play me piano, pianissimo.
Play me forte, fortissimo.
Play me like a song, gently.
Play me with feeling.
Play.
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
find a lover who writes you sonnets
who uses the darkest flecks of your eyes as ink
and the shades of your skin as paper
writing along the edges of your wrists and arms
with tongue and teeth
with purpose, truth, and love
find a lover whose heart sings to yours
a pianissimo summer sonata, dolce
using their words sotto voce against your ear
melodiously humming against your body
with their lips pressed to your neck
with passion, fire and tenderness
find a lover who creates art
using line weight in colloquy and canvas alike
to paint you with diamonds, as they see you
watch them carve your essence
with rainbows and pearls
with intensity, feeling, and beauty
find a lover who gives to you
who presents all the joys of life
unselfishly and without expectation
and when they give freely and openly
ensure that you, too, become a lover
who writes, sings, creates, and returns
Jun 20, 2018
Jun 20, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
The moon hangs, like the main decoration on a very eerie christmas tree, gloomily in the night sky.
Its gentle glow illuminates the world which is otherwise consumed in darkness.
The giant orb, plump like a ripe fruit-
yet glazed over with a chilling moss, inches higher and higher through the starry Milkyway.
When the clock strikes twelve it reaches summit and stops - as if basking in its own awe.
Gently, ever gently the music of the moon wafts through its carressing waves of moonshine - which hug the world below...and in the light of the full moon the fairies seem to dance and glow.
Their tunes and merriment are in celebration of the magic of dreams and fantasy in the air;
But suddenly it's not there anymore, and terror strikes the fairyfolk as they are abandoned in pitch black -
The moon has disappeared.
A candiflossed cloud eclipses the globe and steals the magic from the world.
But soon the moon is free from its disguise and the merriment continues.
Late into the night, when the goddess has long since begun her decent, like a silver'd over balloon, deflating - ever so slowly.
The fairies go back to their flowers and trees, go back to sleep and the world begins to lose its magic again...the soft symphony starts to die, in a slow pianissimo.
And just as she disapears, and sinks into the horizon, just as the dawn approaches, the world is engulfed in a deafening silence - in anticipation.
And as if the interval had gone on for hours, the sky bursts out into a carcophany of trumpets, and orchestra;
a crescendo jubilation as Apollo then edges into existence.
He brings a new kind of magic;
The magic of life.
All this I see, all this I hear when I play my sonata.
I feel the softness of the moon.
I feel the magic as I dance across the keys.
I see the world in a different light, through the music notes sketched into my mind.
And then as the night dies, I experience the rebirth of a new day, through the rise and fall of my melody -
All in the span of just a few minutes and then its gone, all gone -
And I am left starring, alone at the blank pages.
Nov 27, 2013
Nov 27, 2013 at 9:25 AM UTC
There is no experience in the world
that I cherish more
than hearing my father play the piano.
It's imperfect and beautiful and
sounds
like
home.
The notes are often choppy, and there are pauses
as his mind turns over what keys to play next --
sort of like our lives as a family.
We're awkward
and have
broken periods,
but altogether we're making music.
Every breath a note,
every laugh a chord,
every "I love you" a harmony
that
only our family
can hear.
And there's staccato! arguments,
and there's fortissimo days with pianissimo nights,
and there's repeat on repeat on repeat,
making our lives seem
constantly andante.
But life is like a series of randomly placed fermatas --
unpredictable, yet musically enriched because of it.
And I wouldn't want it any other way.
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 6:43 PM UTC
Those were the times — exclaimed master's maid;
When youthful glow was understood —
As dust on shelves — did beauty fade;
Completely changing fair Sir's mood.
The ceremony of served tea
Remains — a consolation sweet,
As beauty brings us — peaceful glee
The Twinings charms — the air suite.
My master is for — Pianissimo;
He plays piano — violin —
Splendidly Fast and Fortissimo;
All sounds swirl into my ***** like Dream!
I'll master perfect iambs late at Night
And Metre and Rhyme will be Sir's Delight!
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 2:04 PM UTC
clink clink clank cling ding
ding-ding clack
ding ding clink clink clack
masquerade
pianissimo charade
heart strings pulled taught
by a known gentleman
transformed into an unknown savior
flying faces
other worldly in expression but not intent
all are drawn blankly lustful
craving distinction from
a sea of flamboyant feathers
stretched personas
masquerade
freedom is her trade
the light in your eyes
the corners of your lips
for a mask
and a fanciful freedom
alive in compartmentalized limits
clink clink clank cling ding
ding-ding clack
ding ding clink clink clack
ding ding
the song masked musicians play
isn't a song at all
but a simple masquerade
Jan 3, 2011
Jan 3, 2011 at 2:19 PM UTC
I’ve begun thinking
In terms of music.
We are a decrescendo,
Falling from forte
To pianissimo
As the clock ticks
It’s rhythmic warning.
Your voice is always
In crescendo,
A cello when you laugh,
Mournful viola for those moments
Your strings are wound
Too tightly.
The way your fingers
Glissando across my rib cage,
Playing con amore upon my skin.
You taste like a symphony,
Brass and woodwind,
An opus on my lips.
Some days
You make me forget
How playing someone
Can be bad.
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 12:02 PM UTC
1 the chemical essential to the covalent bond, that is amorous,
2 the non-verbal communication that’s equivalent to conversing for hours,
3 Vibrations
4 The aromatics of bed sheets and perspiration
5 The forte of a night club and the pianissimo of a night spent star gazing
6 Libations
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 11:53 PM UTC
They snore in turn: a soft antiphony
of hoarse vibrations, left, a dull Darth Vader,
and right, though sometimes slipping off the radar,
a tremolando shudder. Stiff, uneven,
a third threads in a slow polyphony,
divisions on a ground that swell or fade, or
pause, then unexpectedly cascade, a
purred glissando, an epiphany
of coarse cadenzas. Soon an overwhelming
sadness percolates from other realms
where yellow stains an ocean’s perfect white
and who can say how many hours to go
till, rallentando, pianissimo,
the music is dissolved into the night.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 4:21 PM UTC
Synchronicities coalescing
like an orchestral crescendo
bubbling up all at once
no longer guessing
no shorter waiting
the *** is boiling
moreover
I might
be synch
i
n
g
...
a pod
of killer whales
crash-splashing
quite a commotion
up, out, and back
down into the ocean
born into the storm like
a frightful forte
a front brake
endo
the
feathered
fickle angel
screams pianissimo
on tiptoes, reaching out
toward tomorrows
continuously
contagious incapacitation
tells me it straight like an arrow through time
like a taught fishing hook line
and sinker —
trying to figure out
your reason your rhyme
parsley, sage, rosemary and crime
please, let me in on your
pickled paradigm
a stormy sea, all your own,
decides for you, where
you're thrown.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 10:34 AM UTC
I can't stop this
Jittering of the wrists,
Maniacal half-splat
Splutterings of the gist.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Up and down again,
1 and, 2 and, 3 and
Works 'til measure ten.
I cut down time,
And do it once more;
1 and, 2 and, now chime,
Notes shatter on floor.
I splitter,
I splutter,
While Mister
Just mutters
My horrible,
Dreadful mistakes;
One more take,
So try it again.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Jee jee, eff eff, eeh,
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
See see, eff sharp, bee.
Ay, bee, ay-
F SHARP
SCREAMS THE OFT WRONG HARP
OF JITTERING FINGERS
AND PIANO FARTS ENRAGED
WHILE MOVING UP AND DOWN
WHITE AND BLACK KEYS
FURIOUSLY ENGAGED.
BUT CUT THE TIME
AND DO IT AGAIN.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Keep thumb under hand,
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Though left hand's undermanned.
"More fingers, more,"
It sputters into the night,
While sore fingers, sore,
Start a whole new blight.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Now 4 and
Rest.
Everything is winding down,
Flushing away into soft,
Pianissimo serenades
Of sweet, sweet See-
BUT BEE FLAT
MAKES SEE RATS
EAT THEIR MOLDY FLESH,
BECAUSE BEE FLAT
TO SEE RAT
MAKES EVENING NOT SO FRESH.
Piano farts,
Just do it again.
1 and, 2 and, 3 and,
Now 4 and
Rest;
Second time through
Makes it the best.
May 22, 2010
May 22, 2010 at 3:00 PM UTC
Keepers of the time hold the harps, and pluck the strings,
Sending the resonance of the future forward, and back
In the listeners ear, plotting every move, filling
The voids and molding, shaping, creating the destiny.
The sounds first pure, then impure, a learned amateur
Taking the expected mistakes in playing new notes,
Leading, guiding, misdirecting, sounds so close
To perfection, so close to tragedy.
Keepers of the time hold the harps, each listener
Discerning the tones and changes, the falling of a key,
The breaking of a crescendo, winds swept with music;
The calm of the pianissimo, direction to the end.
Dec 24, 2011
Dec 24, 2011 at 10:17 PM UTC
Fortissimo -A
The great fall,
into eerie suffocating darkness
piano pianissimo
leaving smiles on faces inverted,
frozen tears that never rolled down.
The menacing overture
grim and heavy,
crushing fortitude, grief and joy
clawing each other out,
lucidly.
Agitato -B
The angst builds,
wrenching the mind from its rational gaze
chromatic disorder seeps in,
another descent begins.
Agitation bleeds
into rivers of melancholy
flowing fervently to the ******
where famished ears await
the soulful drop of anticipation and girth.
Seduction, no heart could withstand
submission, no slave would surrender.
Coda -A
Returning to where it began,
the exposition of extremes
a collapsing sky, a violent dream.
At the edge of belief,
madness is melody
poignantly orchestrated.
Fingers that questioned doom
have retorted swiftly.
The closing is at hand;
it ends quietly.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
Welcome to the Adagio of my Soul,
Where that slow, slow, sad and sweet melody
Drags me ever deeper and deeper below,
As demons and monsters in panoply
Frolic, full of cheer, in the blazing abyss.
Salute, from the Allegro of my Mind,
That dreadfully cheerful, quickening time;
The one that comes when burnt bridges I find
All around me, as insanity's rhyme
Taunts me terribly, all my world's amiss.
Enter the Fortissimo of my Heart,
While it screams out loud, oh so silently,
To its love, desperately wanting part,
The slimmest, smallest of portions to be
Returned in kind, brush of the lips, a kiss.
End. Pianissimo of my Body.
Lost love, burnt bridges, demon and monster,
Surround me. Overwhelm me. Defeat me.
I lay alone. The music grows quieter.
The song of my life, comes now to but this...
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 11:42 PM UTC
For Dr. Harry Braeuer
The day is mercifully warm when we come to visit you on Christmas.
All is calm o’er the city by the gulf; the salt in the air is sweetly gleaming.
All is bright with glowing hearts by his cradle we stand.
I play with a kitten that looks like Lily because I cower from the realities of your dying mind:
Of silent and holy nights;
Of sins and errors pining;
Of falling on your knees;
Of demanding to know what you’ve done to deserve the larghissimo dying from a disease that makes you forget the intricacies of Chopin’s Nocturnes or your daughters’ names.
You hold your face in your hand and study the eggshell white tile while Michael plays Clair De Lune.
Oh, hear the angel voices!
As if every flowing wave of moonlight of Debussy would cease the decrescendo of life or bring the lucid dawn of redeeming grace.
And after the final note pianissimo, you try so hard to rise from your wheelchair to give your grandson a loving ovation.
You clap your wrinkled and meticulous hands that cannot forget what it is like to cut open the mortal
—to bury the dead.
But please don’t get up, Dr. Braeuer.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.
Stay warm in your bed.
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Bravo, my sweet grandfather!
Oh, night divine!
Lay down your sweet head.
Oh, night! Oh, holy night!
Enjoy the tender music instead.
Jun 27, 2013
Jun 27, 2013 at 5:26 PM UTC
My art
My passion awakes
My fingertips
From your tailpiece
Your tailpiece
To your neck
Pulsating change
Change of pitch
Rigorous vibrato
My fingers
On your strings
In an extreme tremolo
My hands
Are bewitched
By your slender auburn corpo
Your firm belly
Twitched
In a perfect falsetto
I pluck
You whisper
Bisbigliando
Your fingerboard
Wildly opens
In stile concitato
I play your chord
Your nakedness
In a gentle adagio
You whimper in a rich
Sonorous
Pianissimo
In my warmth
You arouse
In intense crescendo
Swollen, overwhelmed
By our wonderful
Concerto
You rest
Satisfied
In a climactic finale
Crafted
In good music
By an ******** play
My little secret
My little piece
A jewel on my chest
You are my cello
I am your
Cellist
Jan 10, 2013
Jan 10, 2013 at 12:14 AM UTC
It isn't music, really
not really
not the kind that you can
dance to
or sing words to
or hum along to
but maybe tap your foot
a bit to
or rock your shoulders
a little bit to
and sway your head
a little nod or two
It's more like rustling leaves
from pianissimo
to crescendo
above the tapping
drips of rain
in puddles circling
round the dangling feet
of waterspouts
and the trilling ring
a brassy bell delivers
swinging from the strike
of an opened door
as dampened shoes
skip shuffle and slide
inside the musty lair
of an old bookstore
all measured by
the syncopated
clapping beat
of hooves
on cobblestone
in time with
carriage wheels
and drumbeat hoods
of rocking cabriolets
He paints from sound
that whistles in the wind
and freefalls from the sky
that bounces in the streets
and whispers to his eyes
that nestles in his pallet
and mixes in his dyes
It isn't music, really
not really
not the kind that you can
dance to
or sing words to
or hum along to
but maybe tap your foot
a bit to
or rock your shoulders
a little bit to
and sway your head
a little nod or two
when you see his aria
composed by strokes
from brushes
dipped in sound
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 11:16 PM UTC
IV
Pizzicato pianissimo
its sound gestured into resonance
a slight plosive of winds sustained
Arco – a lament in falling thirds
whispering towards an upward leap and a hold
crescendo decrescendo
Imagine his imagining in nature’s realm
(that patient catalyst for the solitary maker’s mind)
now guarding here its assembly in a sounding out
Adagio – in a three-fold telling
A measured preliminary to the music’s soon-to-dance theme
before rising scales and emphatic chords – Allegro Vivace
V
Words on the rise
bricks on the going
then in the hall on the wall
A poem you simply have to read so
crouch close to the Suffolk brick
don’t mind those descending shoes
The verse is laced with words of sound
breaker march cry rumble clap
cueing memory into remembrance
And why why here
where formal musicking lives and rules
are we noised down steps by a boiling kettle?
VI
As the water holds its breath
so a dense cloudscape
forms and floats
Inverted
mirrored
wholly still
it replaces the water
with horizonless sky
and extended reflections of grass
But as water exhales
clouds coalesce
a right perspective restores
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 6:45 AM UTC
ode to the flower next to belladonna
the trees on south-facing mountain slopes
silently musing into the nights and not
the avalanche's daughter whom the hills
sing praises and woes
her soul's a quiet unison, meno mosso
a choir and composer spun through
***** pipes, doors cracked and never
fully closed, (there's light beneath the
lids...) she'd like to think of herself as
the wind but she's content as still air
between prayer beads--
and if not the star dust--then who? why else
do we call pauses rests? Why then is there
beauty in fermattas? In crescendos that vibrate
the material of the immaterial--if such things
happened to be true for the unwild and untangled
the perpetually pianissimo, the leading and kerning--
because she would much rather be an empty vessel
or a plate without food, a seed or a grape on a vine
because neither go without lords or masters and
she is not her own.
Dec 26, 2015
Dec 26, 2015 at 5:20 PM UTC
She sings from her wrist
And watches in marvel as the lyrics flow from her
Pulsing to her own personal beat
And with each opening, she harmonizes
Creating a chorus of voices
To drown out the ones in her head
It’s beautiful, artistic, natural
It’s filled with emotion that she bottles
And she lets it bubble forth
In red notes on soft, fleshy paper
Her thoughts finally able to find a release
Through something sharp and physical
Because her own voice is broken
Hidden, under a mountain of lies
And drowned under a sea of promises long forgotten
Devoured by a nightmare of regrets
And threatened by mistrust
She sew her mouth shut
And she covers her hands over her ears,
Stubbornly, as I try my hardest
To let my own melody slip in
Intermingle, and rearrange
to something softer, calmer
to sooth those painful voices screaming from her skin
I try to sing louder, she has to hear
It has to reach her, it must
Through late nights and dawnless mornings
Through adrenaline filled marathons home
And patient rantings to burst through the stitches
I want to quell the tempest of her mind
But my voice is growing raspy
Each song burning my throat raw
To where I can only manage a whisper
And once again I can’t be heard
And her ensemble crescendos full force
A fortissimo against my pianissimo
And I can only beg for those hands
To become weary and slip from their vice grip,
From her determination to not listen
To hear my quiet humming, because that’s all I can do
And hope that happiness will take her by the hand
And have her dancing to my quiet tune.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 1:18 AM UTC
what is this tip toe dance I’m doing
around a purple room
without me moving a limb?
this pursing of lips and
imaginary fingers catching their kiss
at the other end
and this song?
I know this song
the sounds climbing my frame
up and down, up and down
from pianissimo to forte to pianissimo
why sing it now, in my dressing gown
smiling in front of a mirror like a dumb man
staring at his feet in a summer puddle
a child is blowing soap bubbles through a straw
in my head
and while my hat is still on
and no one can see a thing
I'm going to corner him
I'm going to catch him
I'm going to grab him by the hand and ask him:
what is this? what is this?
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 4:14 PM UTC
Where tears would have met, the silence falls
Crashing into explosions of empty
Where words would have ricocheted, violins play
The cello enters where you would have departed
Where decibels would have pierced my ears
My heartbeat pounds the only sounds
Where broken pieces should have flown
Tension lingers- leaving me bound to the bed
My eyes will not open
My heart will not hush
My thoughts will not calm
Until you sing
Sing violence into our walls
Sing forgiveness into my lips
Sing anything at all
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 11:01 AM UTC
Silence now, but oh that the sound would surely shake the earth
And bring maiden knees to tremble
My death song could crumble the mighty walls of Troy
And throw brave Achilles down to dust
Running mad at night through the empty city streets,
Though none would see my nakedness in the black wet reflection of the lights
the twinkle of buried moonlit diamonds scattered on perfect snow
Can only match my brilliant solitude
The bathroom mirror reflects my fevered emptied eyes
Not one cares to see into these red-rimmed holes
destined to stare and burn as forgotten candles
I cannot blink,
a sweaty man with slick black hair sits alone
hunched over a piano
the keys dance pianissimo, evoking slow seductive suicide
a morphine dose in a rainy manhattan subway,
looking out from a window onto the frozen darkening ice,
slumped in a wooden bench seat, overnight
I want to scribble on every abandoned wall, in big black letters,
Tomorrow I shall die
Alas, it does not matter
For what am I?
Jan 28, 2015
Jan 28, 2015 at 10:56 PM UTC
Con spirito
By days
then weeks
then months they go
Bouncing around in my mind
spiccato
Refrain from hope
Don't trust in those
Markings telling you to go
fast or slow
Allegro or adagio?
Make up your mind and
tell me so
I can come off of the strings
col legno
Pianissimo
to a crescendo
and steal away
in ritardando
Rest.
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 5:14 PM UTC
I wish your parents would come to watch your shows.
I know it hurts you.
Seeing you sad
Is like every orchestra on earth playing out of key all at once
Pianissimo
So softly that the sound only buzzes against the skin
But casts a dulling shadow on the whole world.
And you wouldn’t be you
If you understood,
But I wish
They did.
I know it hurt you when we were kids-
They didn’t show up then either.
I always noticed,
And I think that it wasn’t enough
To know that we all watched you with awe
Your group
Your people
Your little army of girls
We would probably have followed you into hell
But
I think you felt the empty seats where They should have been
Even as you succeeded over and over,
Even as you wondered why everyone thought you were so great.
I used to try and explain,
And
You wouldn’t be you if you
Understood
But I wish
They did.
And I’m sorry
And I hope you know
It’s their **** loss
Because whenever I saw you perform when we were younger
And whenever I see you sing now
I feel like someone has turned the sun on
Indoors.
Everybody does.
That’s how you make people feel
Without trying,
That’s why they get so stuck on you.
And you wouldn’t be you
If you understood,
But I wish
They did.
I wish your mom and dad
Could see the way you light up the room when you make music
And I wish that they wanted to
Because they have such a gift in you
As a performer, as an artist, as a human being
And you wouldn’t be you
If you understood,
But I wish
They did.
They should understand
They could have watched you change us and inspire us
They could have watched you create
They could have admired your kindness and your talent
And they still could now,
And I think
It’s so sad-
That they waste their chance to enjoy the person you became
While they
Were too busy to look.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 9:59 PM UTC