"syncopated" poems
*Let me be captured by the night.
Engrossed in the conversation
between the stars.
Syncopated twinkling like...
thousands of fireflies
trapped within sealed jars.
Let me be enslaved by the moon.
As I drink her glow in
greedy insatiable gulps.
Crestfallen...
Her beam with an agenda...
As the landscape she sculpts.
Let me be ensnared by my solitude.
But I hear crickets...
Chirping and chipping away at my
bastion of dreamstate.
Persistent calls
I try to shun
that never abates.
Let me be trapped in my thoughts.
So I could harness...
And immortalise them in
indelible careless scribbles.
Erecting and...
Rebuilding them from the
rubble of conflicting squabbles.
**Let me be overwhelmed
by the mess of my being...**
Let me wallow
Then emerge strong from this
decrepit state of mind.
Let me breathe heavy from my
punctured lungs.
So I could heal in time before
true solace
in this dark,
I would find.*
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 12:05 PM UTC
The first thinkers were poets
Naming Mother Earth
Beginning symbolic thinking
Of nature, death and birth
Though themes are often repeated
Love, Beauty and God
Poetry in the guise of Religion
A prophet or a fraud
The poet resurrects the Primitive
Through allegory and similes
Disarming the unknown like explorers
Sublime Prophets and Visionaries
They must lay bare those treasured images
That must be expressed
Unraveling and revealing the sounds
At each soul’s behest
Encompassing the entire Cosmos
So lyrical the beat
The poet’s excitement flows outward
Laid at the Reader’s feet
So original, individual
She won’t examine or explain
Letting go the festering feelings
Disturbances in her brain
He exposes his dark, wounded psyche
Just to release and express
Such capacity to see and compare
Hyperbole at its best
I love, I hate, I suffer
A special dance in rhythm and rhyme
The poet as a buffer
Lessening the pain and sting of time
Laden with symbol and feelings
She gives you sweet relief
From something urgent, revealing
Confusion to belief
Through a cinematic kind of seeing
The poet purges to transform
By leaping through Alice’s looking glass
She never was one to conform
Quite intolerant of convention
Just like The Mad Hatter
His passions immune to all logic
In syncopated patter
Jamming up the poet’s mind
Struggling for expression
Seeking order out of chaos
An infantile regression
Cleaving to his imaginary world
The poet breaks out into words
Creating sound paintings to be unfurled
So his own agony is blurred
She succumbs to storms of passion
With instinctive techniques
Rhymes and rhythm still in fashion
Out of hand flows mystique
The poet mines from his unconscious
The Reader is not blind
For every single line and symbol
Means something to the mind
Causing an inner liberation
Enlightenment or flight
It is a matter of life and death
When darkness turns to light.
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 6:55 PM UTC
Empty hands and love wasted
Wasted, the state of being wasted
Drunk on love
Or high on life
Perhaps intoxicated with the idea
Breathing in the fumes of both
Hookah and happiness
Crushed up pills meant to calm anxiety
Only calm their mind
Not the body, not the syncopated motions
Not the actions in which they're partaking
Crushed up pills, crushed up souls,
Uppers and downers so that maybe
While their mind is numb,
Their body sure isn't,
Maybe for a moment they don't have to think
About what love actually is.
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
It's a dance
It really is
Skip and prance
Lifelong practice
Loop of songs
Never ending
Of various genres
Life is playing
There's the spotlight
World is awaiting
Pressure of eyes
Silently watching
Take your place
Assume your position
Execute with finesse
And flawless precision
Spin your pirouettes
Don't get dizzy
Maintain your poise
In this revelry
Along comes a partner
Present as a duo
The game now altered
From when you were solo
Two bodies now
Move in unison
Reciprocate and reply
Through steps made in heaven
Flighty feet
Intertwined bodies limbre
Sweet little performance
Elapsing into forever
With grace of ballet
Each other you'd catch
Intimate display
Think you've found your match
There'll come such time
Both will not be in sync
Episodes of missteps
Push you to the brink
Alone again
Or switch of partners
Find solace in groups
Still dancing for answers
Dancing with others
Much you can learn
From hip hop to the waltz
Together or in turn
Try to adapt
To different styles
Soak up all you can
May take a while
I've danced all my life
Can't say that I've mastered
Fair share of jeers
And accolades I've garnered
Always clumsy
Exceedingly awkward
Tripping and falling
Barely proceeding forward
It's just this dance
One with syncopated beats
It's just this prance
That my gait can't meet
It's just this stance
I often use as retreat
I realised in a glance
That I have...but
two left feet
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 5:36 AM UTC
I
From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On distant citadels aflare.
II
Great names, I cannot find you now
In these loud years of youth that strives
Through doom toward peace: upon my brow
I wear a wreath of banished lives.
You have no part with lads who fought
And laughed and suffered at my side.
Your fugues and symphonies have brought
No memory of my friends who died.
III
For when my brain is on their track,
In slangy speech I call them back.
With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm.
‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’
I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time;
And see their faces crowding round
To the sound of the syncopated beat.
They’ve got such jolly things to tell,
Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat...
. . . .
And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone.
They’re dead ... For God’s sake stop that gramophone.
5k
Schwinny, Baby,
You were supposed to be
my
Bicycle.
So I don't ask for anthing special.
No dark Harley divas
To whisk me off into the sunset.
But I thought we were at least
On the same road together.
So please.
Don't go droaning on how
Life got too complicated.
I mean,
You've got one flimsy gear.
And don't go moaning how
The road got too bumpy.
I mean,
You went blind bonzai batshit
over burnt black tar pavement.
You just
Let go.
Threw away your
Chain of reasoning
Faster than I could brace for impact.
So am I bleeding?
Yeah, I'm bleeding.
And the worst part is,
I still need you!
No, No, no.
Not like Pom Pom pammy
Needs her purple-plated pogo stick
Nor like Princess Paris
And her prissy pink prom queen limo,
No.
I mean I need I need you like
Alibaba needs his golden cherub camel,
Like Ben Hur his crimson-fury chariot.
Because work is 37. Blocks. Away.
And it starts in 16 minutes.
And the bus is really unreliable.
So we ride again,
Guts against the wind.
But now I've got all ten fingers and toes
Crossed,
Two by two,
And point in fact,
Racing down Guadalupe with
Forked Philanges
Gets really hairy.
But your suicidal tendancies simply scare me.
Your thirst to incur first degree burns,
Fractured femurs,
And flayed skin whittles my patience
To tire track thin!
Think I'll
Roll my dice with a Segway.
She'd be a quaint, play it safe kind of girl.
Type to show off
To a Mom and Dad
Reveling in rosemary jubilation.
Aw, son.
We knew you'd land a keeper. That's my boy.
But in ten days tops,
I'd begin to miss your fiery imbalanced breath.
I'd yearn for your bipolar 180 turns that
Make my heart skip that terrible, syncopated beat.
So let's just say,
I'll give it one more shot.
But ***** just promise you'll stick around a little longer.
It's storming outside and
We both got a few blocks to go.
Feb 4, 2010
Feb 4, 2010 at 10:17 PM UTC
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a ***** play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that ***** sing, that old piano moan--
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
4.1k
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
I was young when I learned to sing
to the rhythm of fists
flying through the air
like birds too angry
with the season to call.
I was young when I thought a tune
could drown the sounds
of my mother’s sobs
crashing through hallways
in tidal waves and monsoon misery.
I was young when I carved
songs in the wallpaper
and into my delicate skin.
I turned bruises into syncopated beats
and scars into major scales.
My stepfather hated music
but I was an ornery child,
and I sang of joyous things
just to see if his soul could dance,
but instead,
I got two left feet in swift kicks.
When I was was young I was afraid of sticks
because I thought my body was a drum
to be beaten and battered
to a punishing rhythm.
I was young when I learned
that the taste of blood on my lip
was merely the flicker before the intermission;
the finale would be a grand display
of pomp, punch, and unlucky circumstance.
My mother was a tone-deaf drunk
who never learned to sing.
She belted begging in B flat octaves
like it was the only note she knew.
She wept an ocean of sorrow
as I sang my S.O.S.
“God, save our sinking ship.”
“God, save our sinking souls.”
“God, save our sorry stepfather from himself.”
And when I thought to cry,
I sang my little heart out instead.
I sang of devil's meeting end,
and I sang of daughter's finding love,
and I sang of mother's finding
strength enough to leave,
and I sang to the happy families
that only existed in sitcoms,
because my stepfather hated music
but I hated him far more.
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 12:15 PM UTC
Ambrose
Ah-kin-
MOO-sir-ee
Lifts a trumpet to his mouth.
Deep breaths blow notes
at right angles
into space.
The sound is worn denim.
The sound is Lauren Bacall.
The beat is urgent and syncopated
just like his last name.
Ambrose
Ah-kin-
MOO-sir-ee
Rests a trumpet by his side.
Reverb:
Ambrose interprets the persistence of sound;
reflections build up and decay
until the sound is absorbed
by the surfaces of this space.
Inhale.
Ambrose,
pulls the trumpet
To his mouth
once again.
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 2:02 PM UTC
Your left claims my right’s rest—
knuckles hum, sweat salts the air.
Sharps snag—a tangle—undressed,
metronome skips our heart’s fanfare.
Breath clots where sighs arrest,
heel hooks what the pedal bare.
Skin maps chords upon our *******
Teeth script scores we swear.
May 6, 2025
May 6, 2025 at 9:30 AM UTC
You’re wishing plus wanting
to win the other side
remove your pride,
you untied tidal pool,
the wide subdivide of these paper pages.
Unrelenting numbers
remind you of the next stages,
taking you wildly to Namibia,
surrendering you to Zimbabwe,
the terminal station.
The narration vocalizes the translation of quotations,
your obligation to the violation of the rules, the regulations,
vulgarization of spoken word.
Pretty paintings plaster typecasts,
the pitter-patter of pity’s pretty ******
quickly shifting refurbished velvet sofas.
Overcast symphonies outlast
witty recast stanzas,
scores with notes naturally quote
verses romancing seltzer spines
noticing the negotiation of sore throats.
Oblivion’s oblivious to the people,
obnoxiously obscene with syncopated
saturation of public vital signs.
You’re the vain strain of virus
photocopying yourself within skin,
waste your sin on tattoos trapped on shins
safety pins selecting prints
pinning sets of twins to tanned wrappers
protecting official reports.
The ossuary welcomes records printed on thick paper
suspiciously missing skeleton swords.
Writing stories reversed while tipsy,
quickly preforming risky poetry smog,
sweetly omitting secret words,
trying to spell simply without the proper prologue.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 1:52 PM UTC
Different strokes for different folks, but if I stuttered when I spoke, there is a reason why I wrote, and if you think that I'm a joke, then stroke me, stroke me...
Empirical lyrically virile and viral a warrior reborn like he's gone out of style,
a rage unabated both non-syncopated and internal/external no meter's abated!
You wanted an anthem?
You wanted a cause?
You wanted a figure to even the odds?
You thought I was kidding
but now you're admitting that
I am the chosen whose broken the clause!
Rising in status, my main apparatus, the attitude: platitudes lack the finesse!
I'm searching for perfect not anything less!
I'm raring to stage an incredible coup, there just ain't a limit to what I can do!
Melding the milieus of millions and millions of masses who clash for the chance for the cash,
when all that was needed was truth to believe in, significance outed, you puppet let's dance!
No bragging, no lagging, and no more sandbagging, the hustle is over, your tussle is weak!
For soon we will savor the end of your flavor, fifteen minutes over, your outlook is bleak.
I'm nobody's pigeon hole, nobody's fool, I've seen quite my share of arrogant tools,
but here are the statements that lead me to greatness:
love me or hate me, go on instigate me, ignore me and gasp when you hear of my rule!
I'm raring to stage an incredible coup, there just ain't a limit to what I can do!
Now join me in raising a fist to the sky,
and pound upon pressure to powers that lie.
Make diamonds of rhyme-ends and squelter your silence
to pierce through the casket that left us so quiet.
Their reign is run dry, and nobody buys it, let's hit this at home so they cannot supply it.
Prepare the artillery pack in your fire, you're gonna need it , if the bars get any higher,
now hear from the jokee, I dare you provoke me, you still talking **** well stroke me, stroke me.
I'm raring to stage an incredible coup, there just ain't a limit to what I can do!
**I'm willing to take it for me and for you, THERE'S NO ******* LIMIT TO WHAT WE CAN DO!**
Dec 3, 2012
Dec 3, 2012 at 4:41 PM UTC
only two dancers
remain standing
shuffling
and swaying
under syncopated lights
held by
an unspoken law
an apparently unavoidable
trait of human nature
that forces them
to continue despite
such terrible choices
of song
and persistence
each was merely
a "friend
of the bride"
moving in different circles
prior to this
their dancefloor meeting
unfortunately
neither can now
abandon the other
to dance alone
to risk being seen
as the cause
for bringing this
near-sacred ritual
to an end
these residual bodies
left with no choice
but to mirror
each movement
match every sidestep
echo every clap
with rhythm
or without
it will not matter
so long as this
transient solidarity
of misplaced confidence
and forced smiles
continues into
the next song
Jan 13, 2023
Jan 13, 2023 at 10:50 AM UTC
You make my body burn slow,
like a stricken match in a film noir;
our legs intertwine
like muscular vine,
chests pressed so close
we can synchronize
our heartbeats, every artery
and vein pumping
like speed-of-light projectors.
You bend my senses, make them
forfeit heir coherences, force
my limbs to misplace
their native tongue
within a simmering puddle
of submissive bliss.
Your tongue sliding up my back?
Fosse was never so graceful.
I want to play back your moans
on speakers the size
of monoliths.
I need to pleasure you
until the wave
becomes a tsunami,
one ready to swallow all doubt
and shame and apprehension
until all that septic negativity
is trapped within our jaws,
drowning in our slithering tongues
until it dissolves as quickly
as sugar in a boiling cauldron
and there is nothing left
but our sweat and our panting
and the excitement
that these dunes of ecstasy
will repeat themselves indefinitely.
Apr 5, 2012
Apr 5, 2012 at 12:13 AM UTC
*love is a rhythm i choose not to edit
burning serpents in syncopated tones
stolen vibrations from conquered nations
i am amazed at slavery's undertones
doomsday hypothesis
insufferable hypocrisy
is this the way we are meant to perceive
reality's final throes
perhaps a last attempt at infatuation
another insurgency toward our situation
there is music in the millipedes
1,000 feet stomping on the hot pavement
midday heat is burning the gentlest of trees
and yet saving lives of anteaters in need
grief is complete and not wasted
never jumbled by threads of frailty
insipid lipids deftly crawl upon caterpillars shoulders
starry eyed soldiers
sold to the streets in shivering brokenness
i am madness incarnate
the west is a spectacle of insubstantial lunacy
if you wish to conquer this reality
open your heart and kiss the feet of kindness
blindness is worshipped as if it was wisdom
sincere victims of another’s prison
simpler lives define simpler times
keepers of the rhythm
keepers of the rhyme
i dine on salamanders and supine slivers of the moon’s heartbeat
fault no one but yourself
gifts are wealth
i am salt and sulphur is the mother of the soul
loose cannons explode
she rode the wild shadows
and took the backroads all the way home
infinite living history
his memory serving beauty forever
for a lifetime i am looking for truth
in shattered space and respecting the face of the ancestors
self aware shades of solidarity
harvested by hands made light with clarity
is this music
is this meaning
her openness is our healing
this majesty surrounds us all
resolve to rise and your bound to fall
small instances of randomness daily
semantics are happenstance
you graduate from school with a bouquet of flowers
that rot in the morning’s splattering of paint
as garbage heaps resist ***********
issues of power and surface tension
i am dreading the exceptions
give love now or move out of the way
stay awake and aware
while sadhana is beckoning to us all*
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 2:58 PM UTC
Entanglement: First Poem of the Day
We awake simultaneously, syncopated.
Guests next door,
Can't risk love making noises at five am,
*A noisy first coffee of the day,
An oops, unintended,
Guest wake-up call.*
Nope.
So, instead,
We ear-insert our buds, white flowers,
You, to the Land of Thrones, yay,
Me, to the land, nay,
The island of my
Secret poetry life.
I'm carried there on music-waves,
A Motet For Five Voices and
Jason Mraz, Tracy Chapman, Billy Joel,
Pandora's music box escapees.
Pandora's an oddball shuffler,
Just like me.
You read/listen/sleep head-resting upon
My good arm, my cunning one,^
And I leftist type write, hunt and peck at 6:00 Am,
And tho we will not fluids exchange,
I smile at our white wires all crossed up
As metaphor for our
Heart's happy entanglement.
^ Psalm 137
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6:15Am
June292013
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 3:42 PM UTC
In the freshly seared hours of the morning
there's a hot, bothered growling
coming from beyond
the rose-studded chipping fence posts,
sick with the stench of stained mattresses
and mounds of cage-less garbage-
tossed willy-nilly
into a smoldering, contorted
**** of stacks.
Here,
in this spot of dawn
-in today's un-showered
moist enclave-
I find, syncopated
by the vrooooming scooters
and gassy buses,
a fresh hope diffusing faster
than the steam from drains,
-subtler than the soft soju snores
of last night's curb cuddlers-
slinking up, down, around convenient stores' corners
past every security camera,
bouncing off rib cages,
tickling the barbules of the songbird
perched in my utility wires
in a nest neater than my bed.
This is summer, Korea.
This is Korea in the summer.
Aug 9, 2012
Aug 9, 2012 at 10:59 PM UTC
Feelings subside when ****** from a straw.
Worn down and white until left with no more.
"Fill me with sweets, and your honey kissed vernacular tonight."
but to me, I find that those who need ego-stroking will run me out of my high.
They tell me that my thoughts and actions will leave my young mind contrite and fretting.
Yet curiosity survives formal education,
so even with this piece of coded information
i still wanted to commit the crime and enter a realm of affirmation
The one that only you emulate
one of strong will
hope
and pretty flowered daisy chains
But in all reality , i am to stay here.
holding my own hand side by side,
watching stranger's fingers intertwine along side in syncopated time
during what, though divergent in style,was promised to be my 'glory days'...
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 11:23 PM UTC
Vibes caught
static between
snares
hips swinging
searching for music
that played their truth.
The bass line
wasn’t just music
it was breath
pulling ribs apart
to let
the rhythm in
Fingers slid down
necks like frets
pressing
into chords
that hummed notes
down thighs
in time
Wanting
too blow
saxophones
Spitting all over
the reed
Jazz
isn’t something
you hear
it’s something
that happens
to you
cymbal crashed
piano keys
Play confessions
no hymn
would dare too
black and white blending
spilled burbon over
smoke-stained wood
Feet tapping
out codes no one
else could decipher
syncopated riff
breaking patterns
breaking rules
The off beat
gospel you
couldn’t write down.
The room
swayed with them
walls leaning in
leaning closer
to the crescendo
the saxophone
came in
it was a third hand
tracing lines
down spines
nobody dared
to blow before.
This is jazz:
argument
turned
foreplay
rough pull
dissonance
before harmony
slips in
like a satin sheets
you weren’t ready for.
Hands hit bodies
like drumsticks
slap rolling
inhale percussion
moaning muted horn solo
They weren’t just
feeling the music;
they were
becoming it
beating out solos
on each other’s skin.
The sweat smelled
like vinyl records
warm grooves
pressed
into the air
spinning
slow spins
catching sparks
needle skating over scars
was a minor chord
that somehow
still felt major.
learning
how to recognize itself.
Passion spilling out
her mouth
scotch over his
mahogany wood
The rimshot
of her sigh
Improvision
improvisation
of his kiss
Scatting sound
echoing
from lips
His horn
hit her high note
one that split
the room in half
she leaned closer
saying
“Do you hear that?”
But he wasn’t listening
to the music anymore.
He was listening
to her pulse
that slick
heartbeat drumming
solo against
his wrist.
This is what
jazz does
You don’t
just play
It consumes.
becomes the air
the walls
sweat
the skin
It’s the music
you don’t hear
but feel
right there
in the space
where your ribs
can’t hold
the notes.
Jazz
doesn’t end
it just fades
into the background
waiting for you
to join again
Nov 25, 2024
Nov 25, 2024 at 7:13 AM UTC
Looking down from over their bodies - I count them.
My split mind at once rejoices in and recoils from that counting.
Peering back over my shoulder I make
dark associations.
It’s as if I was afraid of becoming lost
the way the bodies made a trail like bread crumbs,
leading back from the places I had been.
I walk with the Holy Light.
I walk with my dark companion.
I walk between the spines of the body shrikes.
They harvest all my crumbs and remind me I am lost.
They hook the bodies high from spikes
so I look up to make the body count.
I can see the Holy Script
but I can’t seem to find the way.
Red and gold beacons in the dream,
flickering off and on like syncopated declarations
as if saying:
Here I am
Here I am
Here I am.
All elbows and knees I slip between the webs of the
orb weavers and the cactus spines of the butcher birds
while they count the bodies for me:
Here they are
Here they are
Here they are.
Hang-dog and hard of breathing I have my medicine.
I’m hanging from the sleeping cliffs over
hell’s half acre and the high deserts.
I remember my brother flying me to California on a great olive branch.
He fed me sushi and smiled while he watched by brain heal.
But I was coming for the bodies.
My count was smaller then, but it was high enough for him
and his hands were the keepers of the flame.
The fire there was exiled and quietly he laid it by.
My brother spread out over the carpet of time like
the faithful departed with the weavers and the shrikes and
mounted bodies in the sky.
A child appears before me on the walk - eyes like a baby deer.
His mother is two blocks behind, so he asks three questions while he waits:
Why are you smoking?
Where are your hands?
Is it getting dark soon?
He leaves me to wonder where my hands are and where the dark is,
the Holy Sage smoking at my side.
Like some dark sabbath.
Like some reading of the will.
Like some dark and holy delta sleep in a crib of red clay.
I have a feeling I have been gone a very long time and I
want to be home now,
but there is buzzing and chirping and a red light and
Saul of Tarsus holds a great tome before me and with my hands
I hide my eyes.
I am the dreaming of the world of dreams.
Therein the Holy Light rages like the flare of 1000 suns
while my eyes are shuttered tight
like old memories all gone beyond the sorrow.
The old oath keepers are all plates and screws.
The golden woven orbs and cactus spines are all empty on
the altar like a decommissioned slaughterhouse.
So I go and make a body count.
Jul 31, 2020
Jul 31, 2020 at 8:00 PM UTC
Syncopated with the earthly trumpets,
Silvery milk harps silhouetted the scene,
Golden tolling thunder fogging from the deep,
Fanatics drawing deathly dream-like breaths,
Wrapping around the candle drums.
Suns and moons kissed our eyes,
We all laughed at our disguise,
All truth had become all lies,
From the ground all ties were cut,
Floated to the center,
Earthly lives and candle drums,
Take away the dying block,
Gracious resounding turbulence,
Time stopped for heavenly hell,
Came apart and brought back with spell,
We all fell and resurrect tonight.
Nov 21, 2012
Nov 21, 2012 at 10:10 PM UTC
the good old baritone advises her,
his sopranino daughter tweets disjoint,
arpeggio his point, her counterpoint
a syncopated rhythm of meter,
her high pitched protestations in her pleas,
and low-pitched grumbling sighings alternate,
as puntal, contrapuntal altercate,
to musically the rolling of her eyes,
his stern yet soft soprano wife defers,
while yielding to her baritone's movement,
conducting, though, the orchestrated theme,
as tenor, alto sons caesur' occurs,
her soothing background voice reveals eschewment,
with daughter's movement stuck 'tween measures' beams
(C)2012, Christos Rigakos
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 9:19 PM UTC