"polyphony" poems
Venezia, its musical key of brick and shade
And the canals in rejoining polyphony
Sweeten the dour Church-ear.
From the impasto knife and loose brushwork,
A thumb-smear of waves and gently-bristled strife
Rise to assumption of the cloud-submerged bay,
Mural of cristallo, only-light without landscape,
Made too from the winds of Murano,
Its clayed blowpipe of waterways molding
The lagoon of blown glass and bouquet of colored sea-shadows.
The Tiber lies on its side, like the lion and fox,
Licking its paws at empire’s dust,
A drifting gaze of water that already foresees
The swift-run northward to Romagna,
Where the veined fur of the roe will succumb…
A ripple twitches like one dark claw of the Borgia…
The watercolors of the Arno are a fresco
On the wet plaster of the lips of Firenze, Tuscan fire-dream.
Or like the warring leg in curve of counterpoise,
Sprung foot-forward to the daring world
And arm slung down in stone-victory
From this valley, too much like Elah,
With taunting eyes turned from the Medici toward Rome.
May 13, 2019
May 13, 2019 at 10:06 AM UTC
“i’m done with furries”
i.
i can’t dream your dreams,
but you’ve told me about them.
you wear an owl mask
shaped by fists and transgression;
a laceration splits your side
from a skin split
to your rib splits.
your love,
Bill Clinton or Donkey Kong
(whoever populates your thoughts),
crack your bare skin
until makeup
leaks out of your pores.
you dream of emulating art;
O hanging from a ceiling claw,
clicking heels against drywall
until leg muscles give up
and her diaphragm accordions close.
but who is your sculptor?
who is your artist?
ii.
alas, i am only
a paper mache bird.
i flinch when it rains,
i flinch when i move;
my paper skin
could cave in
from lip crack to *** crack.
(i hate
Inside Out.
but, i’ve only watched it once,
and i’ve been told
my eyes would adjust
on the second viewing.)
i dream of emulating art;
Marat in an ice bath,
tragedy and love and death
captured
without conflict.
but who is my muse?
who won’t break my bones?
iii.
you don’t know my dreams either,
but we could dream together.
two reveries in polyphony
of an owl and bird *******
making love
before they
make art.
our love
is ******* weird;
a childhood seesaw
we’re trying to
find the perfect balance
to with our weight.
we dream different things;
**** fantasies and intimate kissing,
but that doesn’t matter.
at this point in two years,
we can see through each other.
i can’t make art without you.
you aren’t done with furries.
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 11:15 PM UTC
polyphony
is sat on a train
at 4am
opposite the sarcastic poet
you're secretly in love with
Jun 12, 2013
Jun 12, 2013 at 4:58 PM UTC
Music curls
In the stone shells
Of the arches, and rings
Their stone bells.
Music lips
Each cold groove
Of parabolas' laced
Warp and woof,
And lingers round nodes
Of the ribbed roof
Chords open
Their flowers among
The stone flowers; blossom;
Stalkless hang.
2.6k
Is it sounds
converging,
Sounds
nearing,
Infringement,
impingement,
Impact,
contact
With surfaces of the sounds
Or surfaces without the sounds:
Diagrams,
skeletal,
strange?
Is it winds
curling round invisible corners?
Polyphony of perfumes?
Antennae discovering an axis,
erecting the architecture of a world?
Is it
orchestration of the finger-tips,
graph of a fugue:
Scaffold for colours:
colour itself being god?
2.4k
What is the dream,
the diary I keep with notes etched to the seam?
What is the goal,
the endpoint at which I determine my role?
The world only skims off the top it seems,
loving only the cream of the crop.
Lost am I,
having strayed from the path,
a world split down the middle,
cut and dry,
and if so,
where can I live,
who can abide my wayward soul?
A soul assembled from the ashes of Descartes and Kant,
a contradiction in continuity,
can I or can't I,
change the hand that I've got?
Listen to the song,
the siren's polyphony,
the refrain rate familiar,
the color tone wrong,
discern for yourself,
what is the bane of the crown?
Stifle your fear and strike at the root,
with shovel in hand bury your sin,
always striving for truth,
rend the tree at both ends.
Yes,
I am a pariah,
***** in purpose and soul,
the wayfarer's failure,
refusing to pay the pathfinder's toll,
and although my map is imperfect,
all roads lead to Rome.
Retreatist,
rebel,
jester,
fool,
gladly I'll claim the whole lot,
each title a badge,
a step towards my goal,
this society is sick and refuses to see,
each individual is a person,
gay,
gypsy,
Muslim,
Jew.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC
Beyond the realm of everyday
In mankind’s attempt
to portray the mystical and metaphysical
Sounds are bent
The Shepard’s tone is heard
But a human presence is felt
For in each note you hear a breath
An exhale from within
that make the soul melt
sounds made with air
a human quality
For it needs to breathe like you and me
Bringing the feeling of Religiosity
Stone walls and Choirs
Stained glass and pews
Added with The *****
Sets a polyphony muse
~ p.w
Feb 24, 2018
Feb 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM UTC
My heart - delicate,
and malleable
undulates
within two poles,
seamlessly juxtaposed -
beauty and affliction
capricious container-
truth and fiction;
the sheer surfeit
of choice
reverberates with
imperious diversion,
settled invitation-
loud and shiny things.
Hard to breathe,
I'm in exile
slave to my emotions,
obsequious and servile
barren, cold and mute
existence - the brute;
tilted reminiscence,
scars of loss
contrive frames
around moments -
footprints,
interminable -
being and time.
Infinite deity,
triune polyphony
artist of sublimity
smearing shades
of loneliness,
vestiges of faith,
to retrieve
hues of meaning;
oddly convivial
prophets
of reprieve.
Orpheus lost Eurydice
palpable discordancy
suffused in time
could not resolve
without verse
decidedly sonorous,
canvas showered pain,
splashed
Jackson Pollack stain
Love - onerous,
deep beneath
the veneer,
it's mercy severe.
Fiction from the first
Eden‘s fatal gift,
lucidity cursed
altered cosmos murmur,
parlance of
disordered elegance;
effusive language,
phrasing art nouveau
tacit script;
ensconced within
the fabric;
create a Thirst
torment - visceral
and immediate.
Ardor and innocence
once quenched,
render
pathos in proportion
to the pleasure,
conveyance of beatitude
The past absorbed
into the treasure,
Inscrutable Heart -
devotion and turpitude
desire, loathing and paucity
affinity in abundance,
fear and doubt
inhabit certitude.
©2009 & 2011 W.S. Warner
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 31, 2011 at 11:19 AM 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
Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.
Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral. My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,
She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings. My waves peak to reach you starling girl.
The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.
Jul 9, 2012
Jul 9, 2012 at 9:53 PM UTC
i sometimes watch a cooking show and feed myself, finding old italians very funny with everything simple being a milanese delicacy, ambrosia of a doubly baked bread, sprinkled with water, a juicy tomato and some olive oil... mmm, yeah, am bro sia... where’s the salt? if this is ambrosia please give me a haggis in a bagpipe. by the way... the best sarcasm is found in a hangover.
i still don’t know how a cat managed
to knock on my bedroom door
while slayer’s seasons in the abyss
stopped me munching on violins and cellos:
i got paranoid being the only person in the house
with that eerie sound of knock knock...
but i guess greeting him in the morning
with a head-butt utilised his head for the ‘being human’
initiation... only yesterday he managed to open
the door to the kitchen using the handle -
and like any man with his middle finger outstretched
in defiance... he did the same, but with a thumb.
p.s. poetry and collage have a lot in common,
as does poetry and music, i still don't know
why philosophy started the fight, poetry has
nothing in common with philosophy to be
even remotely related for a boxing match,
it's poetry as music and collage, the classical stances
of philosophy are becoming more and more obsolete;
i guess someone had to point that out and side
with plato rather than socrates, but i have to add
one blatant innovation i'm working on,
no not the plagiarism of tristan tzara by william burroughs
of the famed 'cut up' method of writing poetry,
i'm talking Bach, yes, BACH, polyphony, multilayering,
spontaneity, and everything that tzara attempted
picking out bingo ball snippets of newspaper
articles from a bag like some ****** doing the same,
writing a abduction-ransom letter to a rich girl's family
enigmatically... also enclosing a portrait of the girl
done with crude pointillism in cartoon shock colours
with a signature that ræd: antoinette warhol -
yep, and some people will be famous for 15minutes in
a repetitive loop.
Oct 17, 2015
Oct 17, 2015 at 7:06 AM UTC
it's not plagiarism,
rather, a collectivist
coincidence -
i can't believe people
in the former days would
reduce themselves
to plagiarism -
they'd sooner die than
relieve themselves
of an original idea -
working with a mythology -
how could such
differentiated people
achieve copernican
globalist relativistic /
globalist impetus,
and yet, somehow succumb
to an ethnocentric -
genesis of unoriginality...
yes, unfathomable,
the concept of polyphony,
synchronicity inter-people...
plagiarism is a modern
phenomenon,
it doesn't exists in
collectivism of inter-ethnic
conundrums of
segregating categorization...
just like evolution is god's
take on the thrill of gambling...
an original idea...
allowing an in group focus...
it could never be a plagiarism -
the segregating process of
techno. advancement...
toward a...
less cultural appropriation...
and more?
cultural loaning...
"plagiarism"...
perhaps i should "read" into
solving crossword puzzles...
now plagiarism is easy...
any son of sam
is not an arsonist...
but as my continued fascination
continues with
andrei chikatilo...
and batman, the dark knight rises
scene on the plane:
why would you shoot a man,
before taking him into a prison cell?!
ah... christine chubbuck...
this fascination... will not, die...
such a solemn,
vernacular death...
worthy of a Vatican pawn-ship
of preceding the scourge of death.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 9:39 PM UTC
The rusty
red earth
created
beneath your feet
is all you have to your name.
Angel laugh
(bells)
Broken lyre strings lining the floor like
carpet
Never look
down.
Don't hide
your scarred knees
from the world
don't cage your beating heart
with your ivory ribs
But rather
bare yourself
to the unforgiving universe
Try until your fingers bleed
and your hair grows silver with the wind
be thankful for every breath that fills your gasping lungs
and sing to the wind that you are alive
with the song still in you.
The ridges of your lips
tell stories of women
gained and lost
like pounds
or wooden pencils
from grade school
Behind a thicket of eyelashes
(downcast)
you weep
and laugh
with the same pair of bright eyes.
Pearl smile
(glint in the sunlight)
safe in the lines of your eyes.
Crane your pale neck
like a swan;
watch the cliff
burst open with sparrows and
rock doves.
Hands.
(tactile)
In your mind the song of color
shower water and
a tri-tone
thick as the sound of thighs upon thighs
helium-light
sorrow-heavy
Words.
The way you say anything
and nothing
clean-cut by the shears of your tongue
at the end of the rope.
Song.
Polyphony of your voice
and the sound of the storm
as you stand
arms outstretched
rain-soaked and cold
with bright glass eyes
and a warm heart
the storm crescendos
with the rise and fall of your hands
rain falling like cigarette smoke
on your upturned face
You taste on your tongue
yourself
passion and salt
slightly sweetened
by cologne
and the grainy bitterness
of skin
Soul.
This vase full of tears
like your breakable soul
(tastes like wildflowers and rain)
this lace-feathered honey hair
perfection contained in one white body
in one frosted-glass soul.
Jul 25, 2011
Jul 25, 2011 at 2:30 PM UTC
( Sonnet )
Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.
Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral. My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,
She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings. My waves peak to reach you starling girl.
The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 2:59 PM UTC
Who would have thought that hell could be beautiful?
Screams of the fellow ****** bleed into the devilish hymns of the choir,
creating an eerily evocative polyphony
from the lips of those who strip the flesh from our backs and revel in our misery.
The angels of hell smile,
with all the splendor of their former positions and more;
For they are more than angel.
They are imperfect,
and yet so hideously perfect that the mind splinters into shards of stained glass that fall from the cathedral into the pits of hell.
They are Hatred.
They are Anguish.
They are Lust.
They are Greed.
They are Lies.
They are the purest form of every wicked misfortune known to mankind.
They are ethereal; They are macabre;
They are fallen.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 6:45 PM UTC
I'm underneath an amber twilight
(and tasteful landscaping)
flirting with nostalgic anticipation
in room 1034
yet alone and content
I should photograph my life events
or the morning dew, still wet
with evaporating trepidation
which breaks into a cold sweat
when soothed by the resolution
of the seventh, to the third, to the root of the polyphony, harmonizing to the tune
of a Scantron being scribbled on,
or my choice
to ignore
everyone
(at least until finals are over)
May 23, 2017
May 23, 2017 at 2:40 PM UTC
Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.
Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral. My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,
She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings. My waves peak to reach you starling girl.
The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 2:10 PM UTC
Why make a sound or noise
or do anything to the page?
Unison playing from polyphony,
music evolves toward simplicity.
Gould's assertion that complexity,
NASA, is no more certain than a drunk in his city
weaving, heaving his guts into the gutter;
by any measure, evolution's favored bacteria.
Therefore, the earliest poem taking joy
in abundant crops and the lover's body,
2K B.C., followed by Yeats' Lapis Lazuli
offers the completest hope to us, easily,
for living this life without God's help
or even probability's. We meet
in the meeting house, argue and pray. We sit
with the dead who gave their genes to whelp
ourselves. Today, and then, the one question is
What is the polity's interest in the private soul?
Being free means belonging to the loved ones.
O the individual, alone, cannot be whole.
Governance evolves to democracy,
man accepting sole responsibility
for his thoughts, his wants, his words. Pure,
vibratoless song from a polyphony of wars.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 11:34 AM UTC
There is a kind of
silence
which is not
silence.
It is the gnashing
of teeth,
the obstructed
bowel movement.
Speech is an inducement
to polyphony.
But not the truth
behind a muffled cry.
In this, the shudder
of leaves
is more sincere
than all the wrack
heard at the county fair.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 9:57 PM UTC
Lacking imperfection his un illuminating
yarn woven secrets speak spilling
silt that doesn’t even exist.
Inseperable the meta voltaic charged touch
of her skin against his blemished soul leaving behind
marks of polyphony with staccatos hanging by a pine,
gathering gusts of wind and rocking his unsteady soul
on the swing set into a leap into the depths
of the blue oceanic sky and diving deep
into her love
that binds him together
forever more.
Ever again her calming wind
shakes up the roots of the evergreen trees
in the movable earth of his body.
Dec 31, 2015
Dec 31, 2015 at 2:15 AM UTC
I watch the trees
Cackle in a polyphony of sound
Writhing
Dancing
Crying
Yelling
Sleeping
The leaves even fall dead
Where is my ticket?
For this show
The velvet drapes of Carnegie Hall have never seen such beauty in all their days
And I wonder
Why do people chase
Chase away the days and lives with 9 to 5 jobs
Just to buy a ticket to watch some sort of unforeseen beauty
Working just to work more
And living to work
And who ever had the silent idea
To sit idly and watch the trees
Dance and sway
And cackle at my *******
While I drift away
Into the depths of the show
The show that never ends.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 6:58 PM UTC
Bring me the sweet blowing breeze of November.
The sweet scent of the late blossoms…
and the peace of the forest clearing.
Let me have again the smell of pine,
the sound of rain on the roof,
the taste of kisses and the brush of soft skin.
Bring me the wisps of the clouds in the summer,
the smell of the moist earth,
the touch of grass on my feet.
Let the wind blow from the north,
the birdsong sound from their old nests,
the sound of their wings beating south.
I embrace the earth as if to kiss it.
I embrace it’s peace, it’s allamande of sounds,
the polyphony of smells and flavors.
bring me the cold of December,
the chills of January,
and let me rest in beautiful solitude,
in wonderful lonliness,
until I’m forgotten again.
Jul 27, 2011
Jul 27, 2011 at 10:54 AM UTC
The human God is so confounded in polyphony
Frustrated in the midst I stand, dissonance pulls at me
I have learned to scream, "SHUT UP!!!" while maintaining
Complete silence, so as to not upset the dream.
The monster wardens of the dream frighten me,
They brandish chains and make me urinate into cups
They make assumptions and speak in strange tongues
I don't understand.
I know the right way to treat me, I have touched its face
But these monster wardens of the dream
Have their own agenda, they color the room wrong,
Sting, Misunderstood, Sourstomach Green.
When I have such potential if I could airlift myself
And drop him into the correct place,
With instruments and a small apartment
I'd help lots of people, but apparently I need a degree
I need proof, I can't be a felon
I destroyed property.
And mother says it isn't proper to ask for a patron,
That's begging and it's for people with cancer.
Call me a whiny Western cliche, I don't care,
Despite that my record has real value
And my staunch observation cuts right through
The idiocy of everything I've had to go through
I was a problem child, but YOU were a problem circumstance
I blame the space between all of these people:
A problem county, a problem country, a problem lawyer.
A problem jail, a problem lover, a problem parent.
I will face my problems squarely
When i feel a little less depressed
Than I felt today.
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 8:26 PM UTC
Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.
Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral. My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,
She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings. My waves peak to reach you starling girl.
The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.
Oct 19, 2012
Oct 19, 2012 at 1:36 PM UTC
(sonnet)
.
Poet to my eyes, you are the sight of whitecaps
On the sea water, or the sudden turn of a bird
In flight and as the wave I roll and break,
With drowning wings that lift toward you, my sky.
Mistress to my soul, I am the nave of your holy
Cathedral. My head is but an occluded riff,
De-noting songs you make in aisling airs of light
Polyphony, my star over-sings the windy globe,
She swallows heaven, like swallows blacken the dusk.
Shearwater bird, strip my surface with your cutting
Wings. My waves peak to reach you starling girl.
The sloughing chill of winter dies quick in sighs
Waft asunder my little Indian summer, wake me
From sleep and I shall dream but once for your kiss.
.
Sep 17, 2021
Sep 17, 2021 at 11:25 PM UTC