"sectioned" poems
Heartstone is a reflection in music on a ‘lost’ poem. The poem described in its two short verses a summer’s day, a landscape, a fossil found and placed in the palm of a child’s hand. The poem inspired a seven-movement work for wind, brass and percussion with solo piano. Here is its poetic programme note.
Chert
The piano draws an arc of rhythm
rising then falling.
Above
two choirs of wind and brass
exclaim, fanfare, mark out
shorter, determined
gestures of sound.
The procession, almost a march,
becomes a dance.
Alone
Two choirs of wind and brass
become four couples
whose music weaves
from complexity a simplicity:
Chromatic to Pentatonic
twelve becoming five.
Prase
Four stopped horns,
five extended tonalities.
Together they wander
a maze of Pentatonic paths;
alone, and in pairs, as a quartet
they discover within
a measured harmonic rhythm.
Tension: resolution
. . . and surrounding
their every move
the piano
insists an obligato,
a continuum of phrases,
absorbing into itself
the warp and weft of horn tone.
Sard
Oscillating
in perpetual motion
the full ensemble
occupies a frame
of time and space.
Flutes, reeds,
double-reeds
brass, piano,
percussion
mirror-fold on mirror-fold
layer upon layer
overlapping.
Yarns of threaded sound.
Tuff
Without a break
the mirrored oscillations
patter pentatonics
on tuned percussion
of marimba and vibraphone
whilst
a batterie of drums
lays down
shards of beaten rhythm
against this onward
folding of tonality change.
In the background
a choir of winds
flutes and single reeds
waymark this recursive journey
gathering together
cadential moments and the
necessary pause for breath.
Marl
Relentlessly, the motion is sustained,
piano-driven,
a syncopated continuo,
rhythm-sectioned
amidst layers of percussion.
Adding edge,
a choir of brass and double reeds
amplify the piano’s jagged rhythms
providing impetus for
phrases to become longer and longer,
ratching up the tension,
ever-denying closure
until the batterie
delivers
a conclusive flourish.
Paramoudra
Pulse-figures of winds.
Motific cells of brass.
Both
negotiate a stream of
fractal-shaped tonality
expanding: contracting.
A blossom of fanfares
folding into
pulsating layers
of tuned percussion,
flutes and reeds.
A dance-like episode
absorbs a chorale.
Four horns in close harmony
against the continuing dance.
A duet of differences
flows into a cascade of chords
in closed and open forms.
The piano supports
brass-flourishing figures
before a final stillness.
Heartstone
In gentle reflection
the solitary piano –
a figure in a landscape
of collapsed harmonic forms -
presents in slow procession
the essence of previous music.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 12:41 PM UTC
Stealing away from the noise and glare
I paced the aisles of an ancient library
Being worn and tired, indisposed to read
I sat in a corner, lost in half reverie
Around me were books stacked end on end
In safely locked glass and wooden shelves
And sectioned into different genres
Fiction, non- fiction, verse et al, in thinly layered leaves
I felt lost in this vast continent of erudite friends
Poet, scholar, philosopher and sage, each sat quiet
But those silent souls seemed to crave for human touch
Waiting to serve anytime learning’s lovesome diet
Closely sheltered from the tumult of the world
The place, though serene had an eerie air
And books like so many beauties in a harem
Were kept away in seclusion just to admire
The lifeless air and the long deserted look
Mildly disturbed my inner calm
Couldn’t digest man’s total disregard of books
Which for long, to many a lonely soul, served as balm
Sitting amid those gallant souls
I thought over the relentless efforts of sage like men
Who in the stillness of the night, in their cloistured cells
Plunged into research and meditative reflection
What knowledge is garnered in these tomes!
What all charms, encased in these pages!
To what magic lands they can carry us
Sharing with us the accumulated wisdom of ages
With the profusion of electronic gadgets
And information, readily available by a finger hit
Books no more are given a venerable treat
And fated to be stashed away in corners unlit
Heavy with the time tested wisdom of the wise
They sit huddled together in damp corners
Longing to get a little human warmth
But sadly neglected like rusted burners
After an hour’s enervating reprieve
While I was leaving that dumb world
In my ears, fell a faint sound
Of the agonizing cry of the Printed Word!
Jul 15, 2018
Jul 15, 2018 at 8:58 AM UTC
Nima showed me
her aunt's apartment
in London. Posh place,
up market. She had
her own key to get in,
and once we entered,
she closed the door
behind us and leaned
against it like one having
found the Promised Land.
So what do you think?
She asked. Lovely place.
Does she live here alone?
No, she has a daughter;
moody ***** has her
own crowd, sort of in-lot.
We wandered around,
room to room and stood
at last in the kitchen.
Coffee? Tea? She asked.
Tea, please, two sugars,
little milk, I replied.
Take a seat in the lounge,
I'll bring it through.
I went in the lounge;
posh place, a settee
of white soft material,
chairs brown, aged,
but antique and fragile
looking. There were
paintings on the walls,
water colours, rural,
country scenes, horses,
fox hunts, red coated
hunters, hedges, trees.
There was a large table,
armchairs, lovely carpet,
and a lampshade in one
corner. Nima came in
carrying a tray with two
cups in saucers, spoons,
sugar bowl, jug of milk.
She put it down on a small
coffee table by the settee.
She sat down next to me
and kissed my cheek.
At last,she said, just us,
alone, no nosey parkers,
no nurses or medical
quacks to interfere or
spoil our fun or lives.
I sat gazing around
the room. You been
here before? Of course,
as a child I often came
and stayed if my parents
were too busy with their
careers or away on the
matters medical. I smelt
her perfume, sensed her
thigh touch mine, soft,
moving against mine.
Why were you sectioned?
I asked, looking at her.
Drugs and a sudden mental
breakdown and attempts
on my life by me, she said.
I see, I said, studying her
closer, each aspect of her
features. Forget that, she
said, lets drink up our drinks
and get to bed and have ***
Whose bed? The spare, not
Aunt's, she said, smiling.
Is it a single or double bed?
Double with silk sheets, so
watch out you don't slip out
of bed while having it away.
We drank our drinks quickly,
then she showed me the bath
and the toilet and the bedroom.
What if your aunt returns?
She's in Ireland with her moody
daughter, won't be back until
Monday week, Nima said.
First a bath together, then
hot ***** *** in bed, she said.
Nov 29, 2015
Nov 29, 2015 at 2:21 AM UTC
.
1
In the corner stands
My blue guitar,
Mirrors my grimace.
2
I have played you
So like dream was the dear song
Where you playing me?
3
Your body makes mine
Shudder as I imagine
A woman in my arms.
4
At the top of your body
Are keys unwound at the ready,
Silver spirals of tunings.
5
My soul is near hollow
But the blue guitar
Is filling in the foundations.
6
What makes the blue guitar
So shining in the mundane,
All the world is makeshift.
7
My fingers wet with you,
What water sounds like,
As it kisses the earth.
8
Deep in the strings
I summon my being,
Always blue as sheer sky.
9
Blue guitar, silent, singing,
My fingers ***** your neck,
Never do you scream.
10
Once I heard music,
The sweetest tabulations
Of sorrows in rosewood.
11
My fingers ache on steel,
These are your moved guts,
Strings that I borrow.
12
At an open window,
All the day obtuse,
I hear birds in your vibrations,
Untouched air of blue guitar.
13
I do not know anything,
Music is lathed on an open fret,
The heart is beating to a note of bliss,
Hole set in the body braced by wood,
Time cuts as it is sectioned, a staff fires,
All the chords are listed in primes,
Is the ear a window or is the eye,
Blind in the choral songs we make,
All things are ephemeral, wonderings,
Variations we work as structure fades,
As the blue guitar is touched, turning light.
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 9:37 PM UTC
.
1
In the corner stands
My blue guitar,
Mirrors my grimace.
2
I have played you
So like dream was the dear song
Where you playing me?
3
Your body makes mine
Shudder as I imagine
A woman in my arms.
4
At the top of your body
Are keys unwound at the ready,
Silver spirals of tunings.
5
My soul is near hollow
But the blue guitar
Is filling in the foundations.
6
What makes the blue guitar
So shining in the mundane,
All the world is makeshift.
7
My fingers wet with you,
What water sounds like,
As it kisses the earth.
8
Deep in the strings
I summon my being,
Always blue as sheer sky.
9
Blue guitar, silent, singing,
My fingers ***** your neck,
Never do you scream.
10
Once I heard music,
The sweetest tabulations
Of sorrows in rosewood.
11
My fingers ache on steel,
These are your moved guts,
Strings that I borrow.
12
At an open window,
All the day obtuse,
I hear birds in your vibrations,
Untouched air of blue guitar.
13
I do not know anything,
Music is lathed on an open fret,
The heart is beating to a note of bliss,
Hole set in the body braced by wood,
Time cuts as it is sectioned, a staff fires,
All the chords are listed in primes,
Is the ear a window or is the eye,
Blind in the choral songs we make,
All things are ephemeral, wonderings,
Variations we work as structure fades,
As the blue guitar is touched, turning light.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 5:23 PM UTC
The straw that broke the camel's back
Was auctioned off on Ebay
And bought by an amnesiac
Who liked collecting hay.
If possession is nine-tenths of the law
All I need to do now
Is buy the final straw
And then he was sectioned
And taken away.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 7:16 AM UTC
9th Floor:
Good for views in real terms equates as multiple times the number
of floors of glares on the stairs, some less random and aggressive as others
Some from young lads
Some from their mothers -
Who’ll squeeze their ******* for a fiver, but its more for inside her -
It’s always an Apache tunnel of prickly vibes and jibes with little to say
And neighbours who turn out to be mental,
Found in the gutter, covered in butter
and thankfully sectioned later that day
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 10:28 AM UTC
Behold bright symphonic Blast!
Halt the snail bite damage of youth.
There is none to resist the place and time of one who missed the equal avenue.
Dropping before your phantom, dispirited dew, before shadow portrait drops.
Swine with silver throats!
Corpse of embers preamble multi-various multi-vacuous semi-forte polar rhythms.
Sequencing selves in wood and wire. Pinions at drifted tempo, quavering for poly-syllabic idioms,
In sectioned hostels for their sense and glory restrung.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 10:30 AM UTC
This house
slowly unraveling
peeling off in layers
like citrus of sectioned
freshness
squeezed out of bounds
my heart
all caught up
in rooms, furniture
f l y In g
no longer rooted
by familial gravity
My veins wrapped
in long strands of
live wires
hugging each item tight
as if to unlock
the memories that
scintillate within
and I
radiate my
feelings of forever
to somehow imprint them
before they
whirl and swirl off
into the universe
Snippets of our lives
in angled slices
of colored mirror
a look
a smile
a glint in the eye
children laughing
a garden surprise
crazy kitchen singing
first solids and a bib
first little sweet dance
beatific smile from the crib
the bedroom for cuddles
little bugs wrapped in blankets,
so close and so dear
flanked by both of us,
guardians of light,
keeping out fears
Once, we claimed private time
velvet kisses down
trails of skin
hot lusted shadows
gently sliding within
This is how love corrupts
how old batteries explode
burning rust that erupts
as I break out
from the mold
Now your words hit my skin
in bad chemical reaction
knives and arrows of rupture
as my bone marrow
gets fractured
Insides are spilling out
guts all over the floor
all this chaos created
as I split
through
the door
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 8:06 PM UTC
"Who am I, mother?
Who am I and what do I do?"
–Norman to his mother Norma, "Bates Motel"
And so it goes, a split self - the protagonist defending the darkness as
Bizarre murders satisfy obsessions of a mothers love, taking a
Chefs knife, stabbing victims to death.
Dualistic wars within, a helpless man whose mother taught him of the
"Evils of women," instilling her own moralities of their wickedness.
Fostering the antagonistic personality of his mother
Giving to his incomplete soul a sense of wholeness.
Hidden behind the boy next door innocence, a terrified man
Incarcerated; locked & bolted
Juddering with fear - promising to adhere - set free said to be "cured."
Kleptomania returns; unearthing bodies from their graves, stealing skulls; a comforting souvenir, as
Loving anyone meant destroying them also.
Multiple personalities dominate him
Norman Bates becomes Norma; his mothers persona, crawling into her skin
Originating from their very kiss, kick starting a timeless love affair
Paraphernalia of skins tanned, butchered conquests -keepsakes turned to art & now protecting an un
Quiet mind
Reasons pertaining to mental insanity
Sectioned to institutions
Taxidermy as a young boy fascinated his mind
Urges to **** & fill, feeding euphoric highs, & even
Vertigo.
Women thrilled him; their smell lingered on each garment he kept.
Xenos to himself; who, am I mother?
Youth denied, cried away
Zenith ended; his final resting place behind the bars of Mendona Mental Health Institution, 1984.
© Sia Jane
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 8:21 AM UTC
I woke from the deepest of daydreams,
my eyes focusing after being long glazed over.
It’s late in the afternoon-- the light pours through the window—
it draws across above my left shoulder.
The tea kettle whistles
like a freight train in the background.
She’s in the kitchen, but I can easily see
her veiny hands dropping the Earl Grey tea ball
into the scolding water.
—her hands, like old softly crumpled white paper.
The same routine, every day since
great granddad passed in 1961.
Rock forward, rock backward.
What time could it be? Was I out for long?
Fresh cut grass, the familiar smell of lawn and moth ball
I so readily identify with this old Victorian house built by my family.
Evermore, the scent of kerosene dances
with the freshness of bologna and tomato sandwiches
on lightly toasted pumpernickel bread.
Where’s that 1000 piece puzzle with kittens in a basket?
Long gone?
I guess it’s been over a decade since me and my sister
last conquered that puzzle and strategically placed
connected and sectioned chunks
back in the box for easy assemblage on future rainy days.
Rock forward, rock backward.
Her first step from kitchen tile to wood planks
sets off a chain reaction of creeks and moans
that only wood of this age and wear can produce.
She enters the sitting room, puts the tea tray atop
the white baby grand piano: “tea time, honey,”
she whispers with a crooked smile and sad eyes.
Rock forward, rock backward.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 11:55 PM UTC
.
1
In the corner stands
My blue guitar,
Mirrors my grimace.
2
I have played you
So like dream was the dear song
Where you playing me?
3
Your body makes mine
Shudder as I imagine
A woman in my arms.
4
At the top of your body
Are keys unwound at the ready,
Silver spirals of tunings.
5
My soul is near hollow
But the blue guitar
Is filling in the foundations.
6
What makes the blue guitar
So shining in the mundane,
All the world is makeshift.
7
My fingers wet with you,
What water sounds like,
As it kisses the earth.
8
Deep in the strings
I summon my being,
Always blue as sheer sky.
9
Blue guitar, silent, singing,
My fingers ***** your neck,
Never do you scream.
10
Once I heard music,
The sweetest tabulations
Of sorrows in rosewood.
11
My fingers ache on steel,
These are your moved guts,
Strings that I borrow.
12
At an open window,
All the day obtuse,
I hear birds in your vibrations,
Untouched air of blue guitar.
13
I do not know anything,
Music is lathed on an open fret,
The heart is beating to a note of bliss,
Hole set in the body braced by wood,
Time cuts as it is sectioned, a staff fires,
All the chords are listed in primes,
Is the ear a window or is the eye,
Blind in the choral songs we make,
All things are ephemeral, wonderings,
Variations we work as structure fades,
As the blue guitar is touched, turning light.
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 11:22 AM UTC
I know I'm not an orange, but I feel like one at times.
My heart feels encased until someone peels the rinds.
Now I'm open for the tasting, but something in me dies--
I'll be left as bits of scraps; left to feed the flies.
Yea, I know I'm not an orange, but I'm rhymeless all the same.
To most wanderers I won't fit anywhere; I just can't be framed,
Though, perhaps, some may see challenge for another day...
At least that's the way I think everyone feels, anyway.
Look, I know I'm not an orange, but I feel acidic just like one.
The farmer's hand can't leave me be; the chaos is never done.
So I'm stripped and sectioned off for all the world to own.
I know I'm not an orange; I'm just a citrus fruit with bones.
Aug 30, 2015
Aug 30, 2015 at 4:41 AM UTC
The tick tock
of the wall clock
Counting down
to an immutable sound
The seconds of Life
weigh heavy
on the lips
of words
In the white noise
echoes
the sound of freedoms;
sectioned
to the flights
of fancy
the bustle
the flapping
the aqua eyes
distant birds
silhouetted
Laid to ruin;
amid
the fading memory
of a beautiful
sunrise
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 8:57 PM UTC
They say we have two halves of a whole brain.
Two sections that govern our actions
Like tyrants that ride horses with reigns made
Of nerves and weald weapons that shoot out sparks
Of neurons across our synapses
The lands of our minds that dips and rises like the Andes mountains
Amoung cerebellum fields
Where nervous horses hoofs trample
Nervous systems flowers and bend their stem
Into an L shaped pendulum that swings
Unevenly over corpus callosum oceans
That separate left and right.
Art and reason.
Two separate sets of war torn warriors fighting,
One with methodically measured maps
Marked with red flags between concurred lands of logic
And one with holistic metal armor that clinks and clanks
Around soldiers making music for them to march to
They fight over proper ways of reason
And creative formulations
Of treasons that ought not be crossed
Their trenches the rivens in our brains
That wet rot their feet with slimy blood and
Membrane juices
The left speaking in tongues
That right cannot hear when not
Set on staff lines
Or painted onto animal skin canvas
That once covered similar brain battles
Between right and left
Only to be cut and sectioned off
In improper fractions that yearn to be whole.
If only the sides would sign treaties of peace
With pens that pinch fibers together and bind
Halves into wholes.
Apr 21, 2013
Apr 21, 2013 at 6:44 PM UTC
I can become an armadillo any minute.
Every negative I see is one more inch of my spine that curves into a ball.
I can put up a sectioned yet rough exterior
But if you take a jab a just the right crack of me.
I become nothing more than water and dust.
A fragile flesh your predator mind can tear apart.
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 11:20 PM UTC
All things were together. The mind came and arranged them.
–Anaxagoras
We have placed you here and you there.
You have a name and a group.
Do not stray.
To choose is to judge.
To understand is to label.
Out of Chaos we have borne you
And your clones,
And the clones of these clones.
What once was a jumble of harmony,
Is now a sectioned map with directions
And a compass to point right or wrong
Everything was given to us as one,
We have chosen to understand.
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 5:31 PM UTC
Cut open
a gaping wound
cross sectioned for examination
imperfect circles of a lifetime
jumped in both feet
now stone
cold
cannot grow in unearthly soil
the twisted knot
of my gut
Gone are the graceful branches
once dancing in breezes
swift, bitter winters
unforgiving
twiggy branches withering
A hole, my heart once
of flowing honey
now stillness
only winter
ice
Jun 8, 2012
Jun 8, 2012 at 4:22 PM UTC
One face
to cherish
to embrace.
Two eyes
as green as the sea
or as blue as the sky
One heart
sectioned like
good pie chart
One section for love
never to part
faithfull.
One section for loyalty
absolute trust.
In relationships
a solid gold must.
Another section for dedication
to your work, play and life
for admiration
in all that you do
together.
One face, one mind
one heart.
You will find
Love is there.
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 4:54 AM UTC
I have the keys,
but I ring the bell instead.
She opens the door always,
peering from behind,
wary, irritated eyes.
He stands behind her,
holding a ladle, most of the time,
with a soft smile on the face
he greets,
which I meet,
then set my bags aside.
The living room is a tidy map
of corners sectioned as per need,
a corner to pray,
a corner to store,
a corner to watch TV.
Hidden inside drawers
is a room for memories.
But this is not where I live,
but away in a room confined
to sleep, dreams, and reflections,
and one black rectangle
that keeps me aligned.
It is my escape route,
from the noise the vessels make;
in the kitchen when they thump,
on the table where they clamour,
from chasing footsteps that chase each other
to and away in tantrums.
I have one window that slopes
towards a paradise that chirps and glows
I have a door that remains closed
to the only house that I ever had,
love, but cannot adore.
I restrict myself to that one room,
in the end, the darkened corner,
and pass through the clamouring kitchen
and the rumbling living room
every morning,
to step out of that door.
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 11:47 PM UTC
Maggots wiggle around
on the ground,
squirm,
shiver
despite the bright,
mid day rays
of amber penetrating
their coelomate bodies.
They are
Sectioned off,
Dissected according to
Volume,
Mass,
Amount,
Worth,
Originality,
Attraction.
We put them in pickling jars
High on a shelf.
Close the door,
Lock the lock
And send the key
To rot unremembered
In our stomachs.
These memories
Of maggots
Rest not in our minds
But rather
Our stomachs.
We digest them
After we ****** them,
As breakfast
Always comes before
Ravaging.
However,
the memory lives on
in nostalgic bubbles
of hydrochloric acid
and pH under 3
in walls of flesh
not quite dissolved;
each section
still tastes
the same as it felt
when it lived on the surface,
wiggling on the ground.
May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010 at 3:09 PM UTC
Life isnt measured by likes on a post,
Or followers, friends, or tweets.
Life can't be counted by people we meet
Or losses we face.
Life doesnt keep a tally sheet
Marking down our scores.
Life isn't measured by the breaths we take
But it isn't counted by the moments that take our breath away, either
Life can't be drawn out for us, and counted on a graph
It can't be explained or sectioned off into days, months or years
We carve our own paths, and we don't need to count the steps
Because wether you use 0 or 26 letters,
Wether your heart beats 2 or 200 times
We are not numbers, we cannot be counted. We are so much more.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 12:54 AM UTC
connection
A longing, my dear stranger
expression
Put it all back together
I know it fits
We fit
Spiral dynamics
The mountain and
Its wet reflection
Reflected back to heaven
Upward, onward
Connection!
You're in my visceral section
I'm in your sacral area
With one heart between the both of us
Severed up and down
Sectioned side to side
Earth and Heaven
Male and Female
How long we bore this cross
This vivisection
Restore! Make whole!
Connection!
Pouring myself into you
Is exactly what i needed
Today
Tonight, i receive you
Interpenetration
Not up for interpretation
Coronal crown
life, so virile
with this eye
I see
we've overcome
Tomorrow, as though it were yesterday
The sacred serpent
Like a trumpet
To our lips
Writhed himself into us at the tip
And received our fluid chemistry
Producing musical harmony
what have we become?
when mastubation's lost its fun, my sweetest friend
connect
Connect
CONNECT!
HOLY
Holy
holy
Past, present, future
A single tapestry
Woven of a single fibre
Our very being
connection
Jan 25, 2024
Jan 25, 2024 at 8:10 PM UTC