"pizzicato" poems
I was watching the
Nutcracker,
stage drinking blue
The violins
pizzicato,
pizzicato
the wood sprung floor
breathing with the knock
of ballet shoes
I was watching the
Nutcracker,
sitting in the
mezzanine,
Mezzanine
the red kiss of
cherry wood and
green,
I live in
the mezzanine
I was watching the
Nutcracker,
peering into the
pit,
a small gap in the
stage floor where
I could see your
wrist,
holding your bow,
swaying your
bow,
pushing back and forth making my
carpal tunnel
ache, oh your
bow
I was watching the
Nutcracker
and you were playing
the score
Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky
beneath the
stage floor
Jul 26, 2016
Jul 26, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
Fall to me, all you streets of Rome,
With your embrowned oils from torched walls and breccia of shadows,
The pizzicato of stairways and afternoon slowly closed
Like the thick, leathery-echo from this book of all roads.
Fallen, smoldering empire of storefronts and back-shop heirlooms,
Your lupine hills unbound with milk of cur in the wind and woods,
To your fallow fields rowed deep by a conquest of oars,
To the deepest silence and soot-muted oneness of Pompeii,
And a sky that is an ancient coin, without worth,
But still rubbed smooth at the edges by overfond lovers.
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 4:16 PM UTC
Sinbad’s sea-battered ship was
poised on the edge of annihilation,
The Sultan's brow furrowed with curiosity,
then without warning
Scheherazade stilled her narrative
and lived to see the morning sun.
When the moon and stars next owned the sky,
Sinbad was snatched from the jaws of death
then the saga of Prince Kalandar
seized the king's soul with wonder
but Scheherazade left the tale unfinished
and sang with the birds at dawn.
Rimsky-Korsakoff turned the pages at his desk -
consumed by Scheherazade’s charms
then etched his pen across the waiting staves:
The violin must weave her spell once more
and bassoon and oboe take the prince’s part.
Trombone and trumpet led the martial call
and all the rest enlisted for the cause.
Russian bravura fused with the seductive allure
of exotic tunes born of the dust on the silken road.
A sonic whirlwind filled Saint Paul Church,
as winds and tremolos grew to cyclonic force.
A wall of brass completed Kalandar’s tale.
capped by an exuberant clash of cymbal plates.
The silence yielded to tender violins
chanting a hymn to the princess in all her grace.
Tambourine and winds wove a tapestry
of her debonaire and most virtuous prince.
As the final pizzicato chord faded, the Sultan
turned to Scheherazade with tear-filled eyes
and beheld his immortal princess
and she her valiant and eternal prince
and so it would be as long as night preceded dawn.
She kissed away his tears of joy and whispered in his ear,
“My beloved husband, I will tell you stories forever.
Tomorrow you shall learn of the Feast at Baghdad.”
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 11:27 PM UTC
*Utterly enchanted 'neath
mesmerizing constellations,
as an entranced blue moon
swoons over sparkling
celestial diamonds,
cello's were eloquently playing
serenading starry stratospheres
within an endearing melody
and milky ways of poetry,
simultaneously syncopating
strumming pizzicato heartstrings,
tuning our harmonious passages
of rhythm and rhyme 'pon
apricot mist sunset horizons &
seraphic skies rendered of
lapis lazuli sunrise grandeur*
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
the wind whispers to you in furious ways,
ominous notes, like a dusty violin
stenciling finality into the air.
the percussion
of foot-soldiers trembles the grass.
you have grown, my war-child,
from the days of ****** tea parties
to a diva guerrilla,
terrible and well-rehearsed,
your bulleted libretto close to your chest--
and as trumpets sound in the offing,
the curtain draws back.
AK-47, pizzicato--
gasoline breeds fire, incinerates woodwinds,
the wine of the coloratura soprano
melts into blood.
witch, ***** daughter of gunpowder,
bella contralto, your
deep and tremulous vibrato is a
grenade,
and as death crashes to a crescendo,
mortality in the tin frequency of cymbals--
the only armistice
is annihilation.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
*Walter, I just want to sit on my *** and **** and think about Dante.*
—Samuel Beckett
All this fractures the Wolf. The ancient leaves
amid the ancient woods, wind riffling wind
in eddies she can see but she can’t hear,
the braying of a fatted calf which she
could eat, if she could hear thy call, O Wolf.
The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin and viola—play the
pizzicato of rain commencing…
The Wolf sits to watch—what?—the floodlights fill
the stadium? the baton poised? the crowd
about to have their daily dose of not
quite silence served up yet again? She hates
that they have come to watch a prophecy.
It’s raining full blast now, the Wolf’s exchange
for music, how things balance out, how rain
fornicates in the forest, with its pools
and puddles, how it tenders lakes and rivers
and shadows… It can’t be! Ahead she sees him.
She sees Dante, the poet of the prophecy,
the one she has to drown. It’s why she’s deaf.
She will not hear him wail. **** him so he will rot
in hell before the other poet comes. **** him
and spare the world another poem about
another world. The rain and music grow
so dense around her soul. She is so quick,
too quick for him to flee. She drags him still
alive, drags him to the lake of his heart.
Sink and die. In Paradise only bubbles rise.
The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin, viola—play it soft,
so soft, as if the rain is about to start…
The Wolf and I walk the slopes of hell.
When Farinata and Cavalcante
rise up to ask her, ‘Who were thy ancestors?’
and ‘Where Is ***** she howls. O Wolf.
O Tuscan. She howls.
Aug 25, 2010
Aug 25, 2010 at 5:51 PM UTC
Dear Mother
I must confess a secret sin
It may sound foolish
You might just grin
And should these words
Make little sense
Please tell me so
Avoid any pretense
I slipped into your skin today
How the weight of time wears
In memory's ***** I sought to lay
Antecedent memories I tried to bare
But I could not comprehend
A Pizzicato journey
Well-paved walkways
The darkest alleys
Waves of variations
Like the untried
Unconquered waters
Ripples and swells
Of every known emotion
And more
I slipped into your shoes today
Memory lane I threaded
It's not an intrusion I must say
But a lesson from the learned
Though I still could not understand
Interludes and episodes
I would never fathom
Actions, reactions
I failed to decode
Highroads, crossroads,
Byroads, no roads
Turbulence in truckloads
Pardon the rhyme
Allow me to switch modes
I slipped into your past today
And caught a glimpse of you
Like the most delectable spread
I feasted on the fleeting view
Yet that does not mean I comprehend
But when time unfolds
The truths to behold
In subtle forms
Or atomic bombs
Should I discern
The right lessons to learn
I'll go with the flow
I'll let you know
Oct 20, 2011
Oct 20, 2011 at 4:55 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
At this specific point in time, I pause and give contemplation to the definition of time, whilst the echoing chords of pizzicato remind me of lettuce and a comfortable sense of direction in the face of adversity.
Chicken is very much related to time. Now, I know that such loose associations can be categorised within psychiatric parameters. However, such assertions are not baptised in epistemological fires. If you and I rise upon the wings of the wind, then we will understand that the aroma of Ellen will etch herself in the psyche of eternity.
I am comforted by the wisdom of predestination.
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 1:53 AM UTC
Cicadas pizzicato their magical violins
in sweet , whirling summer serenade
Field Crickets staccato their beautiful cellos
from the pink Dogwood Trees , Killdeer
swoon to the music of June , Mayflies tango
by the light of the Moon
Apr 16, 2016
Apr 16, 2016 at 1:04 AM UTC
The distortion of rectitude maintains the guise of a charismatic persona, with a co-existing ulterior motive.
Searching for our lost soul is intensified by the diametrically opposed collision of ancient and modern pizzicato.
Listen to the voices as they forcefully project powerful messages into the darkened recesses of presumed enlightenment.
I have released my imprisoned being from this custodial fabric of presumed alignment, into the lofts of undetectable thermals, where soaring wings surf undefined boundaries of spatial awareness.
Cosmological democracy is the State in which our orchestral garden grows, light years beyond the doorway of the beginning.
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 4:47 PM UTC
i feel like:
a violin string
unprepared for pizzicato
plucked too sharply
the skin of a drum
after ten thousand songs
beat too hard
a piano wire
awaiting the strike
strung too taut
the singer's throat
called for an encore
too hoarse to scream
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 1:46 AM UTC
Take a walk to clear your troubled mind,
And hear the pizzicato violins
In the wind in the pines, and see
The flaming leaves
Brilliant orange, dying in a fire
Of hot colors in the early dawn
The grey sky, cold and smooth
The leaves gilded with frost
Fire and ice lying quietly
In harmony
On the forest floor.
Take the time to
Clear my troubled mind
Take the time to shut up
And listen
Normally I write, but now
I must be quiet. Just be --
As the sky
As the cold granite in this forest, and
The snow-glimpsed peaks.
Do you love me?
I cry into the sky
Too resigned for tears.
Do you live, is there life, must I
Always try to read
What you might say in the wind and the trees?
Will you ever speak to me?
I touch a coal to my lips
It is dead and cold
I feel no fire springing to life in my soul
No words of prophesy tearing out.
The morning is silent.
I am ashamed.
I walk back to the road
And look back over the forest,
Alone.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 11:30 PM UTC
I am able to acknowledge the different seasons, where climate and vegetation are some of the various characteristics which are subject to unforeseen variation.
Our spirit is not divorced from scientifically defined Earthly parameters.
Have you ever heard of the wet and the dry seasons?
I must urge you to give thought to your position in this ever-changing climate of indigenous being.
The octaves of intense pizzicato are able to establish the facts with accuracy, where words are inadequate.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:49 PM UTC
*A slow and steady crescendo
Of blended melody and rhythm
Grips the edge of reason and
Pulls it softly, toward contentment.
It feels and folds its way through
Storming emotions and insecurities.
Ushering their voices to calm and follow.
Harmonizing against the pizzicato
Of over stimulated heart strings,
It flows outward from her core.
Its cadence steady and sincere.
As it rushes to alter her face,
The sensory orchestra of
Memory, thought, fear and hope
Culminates in the most subtle of smiles.
She exhales.
This is LOVE.*
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 8:02 AM UTC
The mood
Played a fiddle
With the music of a violin
I followed the same hips
To the tune of feminine
Then I mastered the gentle fiddling
And the plucks of pizzicato
Before the moon cried
Her desperate eyes
For the sound of a cello
Aug 18, 2019
Aug 18, 2019 at 10:56 PM UTC
Jazz…
Spontaneous! Unique!
You are certainly one of a kind…
The notes you play caress my heart…
Your words, they fill my mind.
Alto…Baritone…Upright Bass…
Your voice is an instrument…
My soul must embrace.
Pizzicato… crescendo…
Feel the rhythms sway us to and fro
Your eyes can say with just one glance
All that my heart will need to know
Profundo…staccato…
Why must this symphony come to an end?
So we may return once more to the notes we played
And perfect our love again!
Bravo?
Encore?
La Fine!
Mar 20, 2014
Mar 20, 2014 at 6:18 PM UTC
Up and down, play keys in forte,
Faster and faster, only by ear heard.
Cantabile, fortissimo, piano, fine,
A variety of gloom and love in tone.
Echoes all over the wall you feel,
Majestic and grand tells a tale of old.
Vibrato, detache, pizzicato, trill,
Its heartbreaking voice pouring out its soul.
Quiet and smooth, the wind blows through,
Glints of silver, brass, and gold.
Repeat the variation and the solo too,
Then continue at coda big and bold.
Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Bach,
Music speaks what these quadrants lack.
Feb 21, 2018
Feb 21, 2018 at 10:32 AM UTC
The violin plays a young tune
Turned panicked from innocent
The cello with plucked chords
Plays a pizzicato of black lungs and smoke
The bass plays a low tune of sobs
Somber over the lost viola
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 5:49 PM UTC
Se respira una brisa de tarjeta postal.¡Terrazas! Góndolas con ritmos de cadera. Fachadas que reintegran tapices persas en el agua. Remos que no terminan nunca de llorar.El silencio hace gárgaras en los umbrales, arpegia un pizzicato en las amarras, roe el misterio de las casas cerradas.Al pasar debajo de los puentes, uno aprovecha para ponerse colorado.Bogan en la Laguna, dandys que usan un lacrimatorio en el bolsillo con todas las iridiscencias del canal, mujeres que han traído sus labios de Viena y de Berlín para saborear una carne de color aceituna, y mujeres que sólo se alimentan de pétalos de rosa, tienen las manos incrustadas de ojos de serpiente, y la quijada fatal de las heroínas d'Annunzianas.¡Cuando el sol incendia la ciudad, es obligatorio ponerse un alma de Nerón!En los piccoli canali los gondoleros fornican con la noche,
anunciando su espasmo con un triste cantar, mientras la luna engorda, como en cualquier parte, su mofletudo visaje de portera.Yo dudo que aún en esta ciudad de sensualismo, existan falos más llamativos, y de una erección más precipitada, que la de los badajos del campanile de San Marcos.
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