"soundtrack" poems
My eyelids seem
to be the strongest part of me.
When the rest of my body
falls
into the ocean
of blankets they
float open upon the white water
atop
the waves of sleep.
This is when you come back.
In this mattress I am a piece
of clay and I can still feel the deep indentations of where your fingers
wrapped themselves like Ivy around my hips.
Hips, that stuck out like white flags of surrender and
fell to the ground in a straight line.
I can still hear
you.
I am a broken record,
and your whispers are the only track that plays at this hour.
“You are fat”
“Look at how flat you are Emma, no boy will ever look at you.”
“You are ugly.”
These are the nights when I can
feel the spiderwebs your words wrapped around my ribs and
listen to the way my heart beats constricted
in its cage, your hand still clenched around it.
Can’t you see me bleeding?
Safety lies
beneath my eyelids but you pull them open
I can feel
your icy touch behind my eyes as I stare
coldly at the ceiling.
you demand to be heard.
Did you mean to put your words
in my pocket when you reached in to steal the sleep that was nestled there like crumpled dollar bills?
Do you realize that you stayed with me?
Can you take your stolen midnight hours back and place them on your pillowcase?
Will your eyelids close?
Or can you still hear my cries of protest as your soundtrack plays into the night?
I don't understand?
Did you think it wouldn't hurt me?
Or did you want to live forever,so you put your
fingerprints where you knew they wouldn't fade.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 11:36 PM UTC
♦ ♦ ♦
She was an earnest devotée.
Her ideals, birthed in Chardonnay
were globally diverse (read: white).
A liberal bark preceded bite.
Her crystal clearer than her vision;
she provoked bemused derision
as she breathed intolerance
toward all who would not dance her dance.
She swooned for distant pagan tribes,
attuned to their exotic vibes –
rapt in multi-culti piety
strangely deaf to her own society,
judged by her as abomination;
unredeemed. The background station
always stuck on N.P.R.
(the soundtrack of her culture war,
Pacifica News and Democracy Nows,
and other progressive holy cows)
Her motherland a shameful mystery:
guilty first, and void of history –
its origins defiled, corrupted…
while she enjoyed uninterrupted
freedom to pursue her whims:
misguided one-world global hymns.
The sisterhood of hu(man) kind
was foremost in her earnest mind –
even should that same sisterhood
be sealed by her well-meaning blood.
Out on a date with global death
she hoped to unify the earth
in solidarity with causes
led by killers, warlord bosses,
thugs she never knew existed
who, if she’d met she’d have resisted.
Her theory landed far from her praxis
spun, by default, on an evil axis.
Hot with zeal she fumed and stormed
quite certain she was well-informed,
at benefits, non-profit functions
rallies, boycotts, left-wing luncheons;
warm with righteous spite for Israel,
aiding and abetting Ishmael
with fellow-travelers, like-minded
similarly hateful, blinded,
rattling sabers, scimitars, axes…
(lunacy never wanes, but waxes
hotter with the passing years
as activists confront their fears).
She finally shilled for the Intifada
(stopping short of reciting Shahada),
reaching out to the terrorist
with righteous raised progressive fist…
offering thus her neck to blade:
collateral to be repaid
by murderers who couldn’t care less
about her open-mindedness.
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 9:57 PM UTC
You know, there's always a song that takes me back
To a year, so long before
It's not always a top ten song
That hits my very core
It just grabs me and transports me
Back in time while standing still
It might take me to a good place
Release a memory I should ****
But, my soundtrack is different
It's not just music in my mind
There's sounds that make my playlist up
Sounds of a different kind
A baseball smacking leather
God, that sets me free
Some good, some bad, some coaching
Some involve my ******* up knee
The click on every eight track
When it switches channels to play on
Brings back those early mornings
when the house cleaning was done
But, music, yes the music
makes a large part of my list
Some take me back to dances
And the girls I never kissed
The good songs stretch my senses
Make me smell things from the past
The memories still linger
While the music didn't last
Sirens, car wrecks, yelling
Have their place on my list too
It's not music to most people
It made my list though, who knew?
A sound as small as raindrops
Take me back to a morning when
I stood on line with a hundred others
Brave women and brave men
Cornwallis, Nova Scotia
rain and U2 take me on a track
To basic training on the east coast
Wow, that's 25 years back
A car crash and a siren
Takes me to when I met my wife
This was on the television
when Princess Di, she lost her life
So, my soundtrack is eclectic
It's not just music fuels my trips
It might be a golf ball bouncing
That takes me through a time warp slip
A song, that's just too easy
Everyone has one of those
But, can you travel back, oh, 30 years
When someone blows their nose?
There's more sounds that effect me
But, those I think I'll hide
I will write about them later
And I will take you on that ride
In 50 years of living
Lots of sounds have hit my ears
We'll sit and chat about them
One day over a few beers....
Aug 4, 2012
Aug 4, 2012 at 5:05 PM UTC
Dear music,
Thanks for always
clearing my head,
healing my heart,
and lifting my spirits.
It's not the song that
makes you emotional...
it's the people and things
that come to mind when
you hear it.
All it takes is 1 song to
bring back 1000
memories.
One song ---
the lyrics, the melody, the mood ---
can take you back
to a moment in time
like nothing else can.
Each memory has a
soundtrack of it's own.
Music is life. That's why
our hearts have beats.
Never underestimate the healing power of listening to your favorite music on full blast while dancing around the house like an idiot.
Jon York 2019
Apr 24, 2019
Apr 24, 2019 at 2:30 AM UTC
a perfect half hour drive
with a perfect sunset keeping me high
and a perfect soundtrack buzzing
in my perfect battered car
down a perfect country lane
lined with green waves
and soft bluebells
smudging the hard lines of winter away
the air is still cold
but this evening is too perfect
to notice
or care
and i realise i have been driving
with a smile greeting stranger's stares.
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 3:37 PM UTC
MONKEY IN A RED FEZ DANCING TO ABBA
I watch the children play
on a sunny Sunday in Rotterdam
like a stereotypical alien
studying humans.
Their cries rise and fall
like seagulls as they swing
sea-sawing or blurring into one
on a brightly coloured turnstile.
A man looking
like a badly drawn cartoon
turns the handle slowly of
a broken down barrel *****
A monkey in a red fez
dances on the end of a chain.
The barrel ***** spews out
everything from Abba to Franz Lehar.
The decrepit old man
and even more decrepit monkey
appear as if they have
stepped out of another century.
I am far from home.
The day is dying.
I read from my battered book
Hamsun's HUNGER.
It's lurid cover torn
half hanging on/off.
The park deserted now
as night steals its colours.
The last words of
of this the final chapter
are lost to me
swallowed by the dark.
The barrel ***** peersists
the soundtrack to some forgotten film
The monkey red fez
fallen at its feet.
The monkey blissfully
asleep.
The music caught
entangled in branches and leaves.
I watch the yellow lights
blossom one by one
a silhouette of houses
like a stage set.
Houses like cut-out silhouettes
a stage set.
The last lines revealed
under a passing lamp
"...where the windows shone so
brightly in every home..."
I laugh at such
a coincidence.
Leave the book on the bench
for some other me
to discover
when the sun comes up.
And return
to my space ship.
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 5:17 PM UTC
Blacktop, soft top, foot upon the gas
Highway, my way, miles of haulin' ***
singalong, bringalong music for the day
iTunes, my tunes, soundtrack all the way
sunshine, fun time, havin such a blast
drivin, arrivin, trading poetry for gas
Top down, drop down time for us to chill
Line up, sign up, still got three seats to fill.
Aug 26, 2010
Aug 26, 2010 at 12:08 PM UTC
When I'm at the end of my rope,
You're my only hope, you're my go to- road.
And if I leave you on a cliffhanger, a slippery slope,
Would you still give me hope? Oh darling please, don't go
Oh make a soundtrack for my life,
Make a playlist so good it'll keep me alive,
You're all I've got, all I want, and I'd let go of my alternative world, if I could keep you in this real one here..
Cause when I'm at the end of my rope,
You're my only hope,
You're my go to road.
And sometimes life is a lonely road,
But I'll hold you close, In my heart
You're my favourite poem.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
Your shrill, yet oddly pleasant sound, echoes loudly down the long corridor.
I try to ignore you as the jaunty sound clashes with my melancholy mood,
Yet I find the notes and melodies cling to my mind like tissue stuck to a shoe,
Hanging on for it's own amusement,
Ignorant of my desire not to be teased nor humoured at this anxious time.
I feel I shouldn't like your racket,
My naïve ears and young years sense, not only an inappropriate comedy in your sound,
But also a daunting undertone,
Adding to my sense of having been plunged into deep icy waters.
Perhaps your music soothes those who are leaving,
Your high happy notes providing optimism and assurance of recovery,
Or of a restful sleep enveloping dear ones.
For me, however, at the point of no-return in my pilgrimage,
I hear only the low notes,
Out of time with my quickened pulse,
And lending a foreboding soundtrack to my slow deliberate steps.
But you play for no pay,
Busking in this hospital,
Doing good both night and day.
Yes, you are well known in this place,
Admired for the hours you commit to this space where lives can hang in the balance,
And where your instrument by day is a sharp sleek scalpel,
Invasive in its desire to alleviate suffering,
Your steady, practiced hand rehearsed and well versed in the methodically planned procedure of a surgical concerto.
But out of hours your instrument of choice lends you a voice,
Allowing flourishes and improvisations.
But were you aware that for visitors like me who visited repeatedly,
The clarinet would take on a significance beyond other instruments,
Taking me instantly back to bittersweet memories of visiting my family,
As, in turn, they aged and became unwell and recovered and became unwell again.
Now I am older and a little wiser,
I reflect and ruminate on this period;
My memories of family are more than just hospital visits,
And I wonder if I could ask one thing of you?
Why no Rhapsody in Blue?!
Sep 16, 2018
Sep 16, 2018 at 6:45 PM UTC
our coolest babysitter lit a long joint and drove us to church
in her well worn '87 oldsmobile with chipped gold paint
a drooping side mirror and a tape player
that smelled like stale london gin mothballs
and a sunset butterfly heart at the same time
it had a deep ocean green calcite mandala
dancing from the windshield mirror
and a steal-your-face tattooed on the back glass
she used to blare brit-pop trying
to make the speakers bleed
that day when they finally oozed she swerved us
left through the other lane and sunday morning fog
to cut a jagged path through thick woods and into an oak tree
with a soundtrack of slow motion oasis and screeching tires
i clammored to the backseat to block the window
glass from your beautiful angelic blonde head as
dew sprayed into the vacancy from the ditch and
when i pulled the seatbelt spiderweb out of your mouth
and lifted you out of the car i was standing
barefoot in a cluster of bright red sumac next to
an ant hill pile of twisted steaming metal
and you were dripping blood from your eye and knees
asking me if we'd be late for sunday school
but you were awake and trying to smile so
we followed the powerlines back to the main road
holding hands dizzy and sweating
worried no one would ever find us
limping while the springtime songbirds
held their tongues for us but
when the hot ringing in my ears finally stopped
the sirens grew loud and close and the
birds too began their wet lipped eulogy
sometimes i think about
missing church that day
when the weather's bad
on nights like last night
sometimes i remember
our babysitter when
the fog rolls in over
the road in the morning
i wonder if she still
gets high on the
good stuff while
she drives or
if she's just
a treehugger
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
Whose women these are I think I know.
His housefly’s dead on the vignette though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his women pick snowdrops.
My little hornpipe is quite queer
He stops without a farce or sneer
Between the women with their frozen ‘la’s
The commonest everyman of the yawl.
He gives his harlot beldams his shaft
To assure they are his mistresses.
The only other soundtrack's the sweat
Of easy win from downing flagons.
The women are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promenades to keep,
And migraines to go before I sleep,
And migraines to go before I sleep.
Nov 4, 2012
Nov 4, 2012 at 9:54 PM UTC
your body, the drain plug,
that climactic days of a day
murky sweet strawberry milk water
ebbs and sways
around, surrounds, and surmounts you
Your body the dumping ground
for pretty poppy seeds
seep, steep
seeded somewhere deep
as
synthetic stinging metaphor rain
pours on your mistreated singing skin
spotted, dotted, synaptic rule
akin to lemon poppy seed muffin tops
your head- a top
spins round
and mimics
never-ending bath drain whirlpool
ambulances and ambivalences soundtrack
this nocturne
night of a morning
mourning already
my poor lost sister
a little less than intact
lost in her head
I'm loosing her
and she's nodding
and she's nodding
and she's nodding
and she's nodding
and she nods
and grumbles,
fumbles for words that aren't there
four words that aren't there
forward isn't there
because what do you say
about matters
when your high
and breathing last breaths overlapping
in humble showers
in heart crumbling nakedness
your faithlessness trapping
murky sweet strawberry milk waters.
Aug 19, 2015
Aug 19, 2015 at 3:07 PM UTC
Your heartbeat is like the soundtrack to my soul and everytime I hold you close I don't want to let you go in fear of forgetting the rhythm.
But you have no idea.
You make me feel so much.
You make me crave every part of you, like an addiction I'm not quite ready to be cured of.
And will I ever?
It matters not at all to you.
Interferes with your life in no way and you love it.
I know you love that I can't move on because if I could, where would that leave us?
You?
Could you live with the knowledge I didn't love you anymore like I'm living with the knowledge you never did?
I'd be your plus one forever.
I'd be whatever you wanted me to be but the one thing I hate being is all that I am to you.
A secret.
And what is a secret but something you are ashamed of?
I spend my life being second best and I'm forced to believe I deserve it.
Maybe I do.
But I'd evade every possible scenario that could make you feel like that.
I'd make you feel like the most important person in the world.
Because to me that's what you are.
You're so special.
I'd never hide you or lock you away.
I'd show the world how lucky I am to have you if you were mine.
And I'd make sure you felt the same.
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 6:34 PM UTC
Poetry is like a tattoo
Stamped on me from birth.
Like a mysterious voodoo,
It's my charm on this earth.
Poetry is like a tattoo
Engraved on my DNA.
Like the diamonds of Mabutu,
It shines from p.m. to the a.m.
Poetry is like a tattoo
It will never be removed.
Like my love for fufu
Not until I'm disemboweled.
Poetry is like a tattoo
Like the Nile and Egypt,
It encompasses what we do
It's life's soundtrack and script.
Poetry is like a tattoo
It can now be lasered.
But in music, like a crescendo,
It can never be chiseled.
#IvanBrooksPoetry©
31/7/2018
Jul 31, 2018
Jul 31, 2018 at 5:50 AM UTC
Your song on repeat
like a soundtrack to pain
and with every listen
I feel you again
Just as soon as I forgot
but I can't let you go
now that you've tugged my sleeve
and pleaded me, no
But your face in my mind
is not close to me anymore
I looked through the window
just as you closed the door
and saw you glance back
but never turn around
Some things that are lost
are dead and can't be found
The song of your heart
I understood back then
too well to believe now
I'll never see you again
You were a sister to me,
so your brother is my brother, too
Now you are his brother
and I don't know what to do
except to sing
except to miss you
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 7:50 PM UTC
Sounding like some wild soundtrack
to a Spaghetti Western starring
none other than The Clintster,
it were rolling in good vibes
with the peeps taking selfies
with the band for a backdrop.
Two horns poundin' out
a happening grove,
with a bass player all of
four foot nothin'.
with a cool round sound.
It was cookin' alright,
hours after midnight,
a Halifax sextet hinting
of Tom Waits and the The Bob man.
I yawned, I looked around,
all those sweet tarts in their skin tights.
I yawned again, shook my head
as the band was covering Ray Charles...
I yawned again and again
and realized I am too old to party hardy.
But still... 'I can hack it'.. the last thing I said
as I headed out the door, homeward bound
In a January breeze that had a hint of Spring.
end © 2014
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 1:53 AM UTC
dear . . . sweetie,
the projections of your essence is the type
to cook up a future of you;
of the home you call your heart,
or how you let it spill across the metal table,
just to knead it back together to construct wholesome smiles.
yours is the form of communication i've never known,
a presence that haunts me -
as the scent of your perfume lingers at the back of my tongue
as i taste a sweet fruit,
or how your stories speak to me
as my eyes trickle such mundane appliances around me.
you have taken not my heart, nor my soul.
you have extracted from me fragments of my time;
where i find myself caught in the air, mystically
hearing the songs that were stuck in my head when i first met you.
you are the soundtrack to my little death.
you are always right in the corner of my mind, just as i want to see you:
half-baked, smirking, and vulnerable.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
sleeping next to you...
(how do i put it?)
is the meaning of absolute bliss.
like that taste of perfect lemonade
on a sizzling summer day.
in a state of semi-consciousness
turning, to find you next to me
with a simple sigh
i smile.
listen to your breathing
feel your chest slowly rise and fall.
i trace my fingers over your face
hoping they will be forever remembered.
if i could have one wish come true
i would wish to sleep next to you every night
with the sound of our silence
be my soundtrack.
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 10:49 PM UTC
I plunge into the cold water on that warm July day
no goggles, only the loose-fitting swimming trunks
I swim through the blur of chlorine
pushing through the water
when a familiar tune I heard hours earlier traps itself in my brain
and I suddenly become weightless, a plane high above in the air
The water is pure blue sky, below me the clouds
And at the bottom the city in ruins
I take my plane and dive down below the clouds
past the blur, until the city is in view just below me
I level the bomber and let it soar low above the ground
Over the pale white shells of buildings
I remember the museum exhibit that inspires this flight
I walk through, studying the pictures and the uniforms and the weapons on display
when in the distance of the room beyond I hear the familiar tune:
Brian Eno's "Ascent (An Ending)". It brings me closer, and I move past the exhibits
at a quickening pace, past the slow browsers
glancing only briefly to read, to catch a glimpse of an object, a photo, a map
I keep going, "Ascent" on a loop, its minimalist beauty entrancing me
until I find a large television in a small corner.
A few people are gathered around, solemn,
the television entrancing them, the music washing over the room.
First the white words centered against the black screen: "The Bomb".
The come the white-and-black photos and footage of the mushroom clouds hovering above Hiroshima, then Nagasaki,
standing tall like ungainly trees in an empty field.
The soundtrack to the short video before me is "Ascent",
or rather an excerpt, a piece of it, stirring strange emotions
Familiar ones that I give attribution to when I listen to it on my own.
Yet it feels different coming from this;
on the screen a few photographs of corpses and burnt victims flash by.
And then the screen fades to black, a moment of silence
before it all starts again
I hear this loop and see these images before me as I fly above
the imagined city in ruins
And for a brief moment I am the Enola Gay;
I will only know it at the bottom of a hotel pool
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 4:23 AM UTC
The impetus
Of being
Always on the run
Through pinwheel eyes
Those standing by
The mystic roadway : River
Blues yet to be brushed
or in blush
Of evening chill's breathing
a canvas like windows dreaming felt
All mindful
And chockfull O'
Wonder
Then ponder
Yonder "window breaks"
Past the wilderness' sleep
Bone heavy wood
Umber earth
Past whoosh and rush of liquid
Folding on itself / a soundtrack
Listen now
Pedestrian be
Mindful of the cautionary whales
Old Ahab’s yell
Obsessions
Fears
Or loathing.
If one is drowning in one's sleep
Look wildly
widely
Blithely
Down river
Or up there beyond finger's point
Sidewinder snake journeys
Until sky and below it
All meet
The distance
Now only a line
Coalescing what is beyond
Our ability to see
Far and away
Evanescent
Effervescent
Ever after
River. Life.
Here we are
And proud
The free spirit is fluent
With the rapid rivers loud
Always on the run
Currents like a child's curiosity ...
How then,
When or why
does it end ?
Where do we go?
Like most things existing,
Will lead to the high art /
love's deep oceans...
We often forget to seek
And mind
the sublimations/
d¬¬rift wood.
So then,
Begin with a dot .
A speck of dusk
A burst of light
A starry sky,
pieces to mastering
Raging fragility of water
Liquid undulations
Folding itself in / volumes
Or falling from on high
A droplet cry
Then the lightning
(crash or bloom)
From the heavens
like electric rivers
So brilliantly
Festoons
Where do we go (so low)
There and here / underfoot /
Over north / southern sleep
To oceans twilight deep?
Go wrapped or map-less
Or no.
Up
Way
Up yonder
There up there
Everywhere
All without fear...
My heart like the river yearns
To go toward the sun
A flow /
the beating drum
Always on the run
And
Yet
Still
Here.
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 3:58 AM UTC
I like it here.
Damp air clinging to my skin, clinging to my clothes,
Grey skies laughing at pewter water,
Wind tossed seagulls reeling passed
Individual calls demanding attention; their joint voice hushing into the soundtrack of this place.
Buildings cluttered together for protection from blasting winter gales,
Yet all jostling for a glimpse of the harbour.
Guess in their own sleepy ways they like the thrill of danger.
Their red tiles roofs so reminiscent of Mediterranean towns,
But inescapably speak of home.
People traipse past, creating the shifting landscape of this place.
Their own lives and concerns mingling to create a vast sea of humanity,
Mirrored by the roiling sea...
Just beyond the safety of
This harbour.
This bench.
This packet of vinegar soaked chips.
I'm glad it's you here with me
Glad I can feel your soul soar with mine at the salty air and eroded stone.
Beside me
Hunched into your coat
Gazing out.
We don't touch
But I feel you there
With me.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 10:49 PM UTC
on cloud nine from the sound of you voice speaking the three syllables of my identity directly in my ear but i'm not one for gettin' played so i fix my lips to ask you the question that my whole body is dreading,
"what do you want from me?" my heart, so loud, thumping in my ears as the future threatens the demise of this bliss that i have been waiting eight painful eternities for,
to this question, you reply "i want yo love & affection," did i ever tell you that you speak in song lyrics? your voice is the instrumental beat and the melody on this unforgettable tune on the soundtrack of my life
i'ma put my earbuds in
so i can vibe to you again
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 3:23 PM UTC
She dreamt about you last week.
I nibbled on my breakfast today -- bread and a thinly sliced orange. It seemed enough at the moment, but I snapped somewhere. I let her tell me off for being unreasonable while her hands did dishes the way you taught her to. She never wastes water.
She said you were both running.
This morning she had tiny baby dolls dangling from her ears. Being seen doesn't bother her anymore as much as it used to, but that doesn't matter to you because you always saw her. And I'd like to think you still do. She was beautiful today. And always.
She laughed softly. "Imagine her running," she said. But somehow, I could.
Last week, she got a bright red alarm clock with a built-in radio. Old songs as much as possible, please -- the soundtrack of our late nights. The first night she figured out how to work it, I lay on the bed the same way you used to, one leg crossed and one arm over my eyes, laughing. Did you laugh? I can copy your laugh too, you know.
She said you both knew why you were running.
It's a jungle in there, and I'm not always allowed to explore. But sometimes, she lets me cross a river. Lets me through some vines. And I tell her, "Baby, I'll stand out here with my little torch and wait out the rains. I'll help you map this place out. I'm a little lost in here, but I'm not leaving until these footprints I'm following lead me right next to you." She just smiles. Did you know that your footprints are there, too? They're all over the place.
She said you made it into each other's arms.
I hadn't cried over you in a long, long time but that Sunday morning I drew her in close and we dampened each other's shoulders. Laughed a little. Cried some more. Got dressed. Carried on.
I miss having you in my dreams too, but it was nice of you to say hello. Know that you are always welcome. Maybe next time you'll stay a bit longer. We'll have your coffee ready.
Thank you. Please, come again.
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
Throughout this soundtrack that I call my life,
your heart is the beat,
your voice is the lyrics,
your soul is the slow and steady rhythm,
your kisses are the chorus
and your face is the album art.
Without you,
I would never hear music the same again.
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 6:47 PM UTC