"timpani" poems
Can I write you a love song
I’ll sing it softy in your ear all night long
Blow gently without words on my saxophone
Diamond and Pearls behind the throne
A beautiful ensemble meant for only you
As I give credence too
Take my hand
Cross this journey with me as I sing about faraway lands
Past Egypt pyramids shifting Morocco sands
Lay back my love, allow your mind to silently drift
Feel the enchantment of my piano keys as it spiritual uplifts
I’ll sing love songs of old
A cappella chorus echoed from deep within my enlighten soul
I’ll sing to you about the blues, society’s injustice, and elements of darken storms
Keep your heart warm, while playing my French Horn
Enrapture foretold from this dedicated symphonic poem
A music sheet of percussion, woodwind, brass, keyboard, and strings
Harmony carrying the mind away as the joy of coming spring
I’ll hum your favorite beats, can you feel the crescendo now
Fiddle from the heart by the sweat of one’s brow
Submerge your cerebral cortex, lose yourself in the sultry tunes
Harp sounds bathe of light kissed from the illuminating moon
Destiny overcasts in the lyrics
Fate floating stratospheric
Karma of others handled in the eyes of satiric
Opera, I give you so grand in its grace
French Creole dialect murmured among silk and lace
Sounds of my flute resonant to face
Allowing my Cello sounds to thoroughly embrace
Can I write you a love song
Body and soul serenading soprano to keep you standing strong
My guitar stringing your philosophies along
An equal equation, one plus one equals two
Emotions, feelings, sentiments, its tenor expressed only for you
No compass to my heart, my seasonal love found in hidden melodies
Trombone guiding back and forth breathless as it please
Orchestra sounds
Ascending minds, bodies, souls, pass the opening clouds, divine and profound
The last note sung by me as we gradually come down
Beautiful music embraced, needs never to make a sound
Shh, close your eyes
Meditate on the music for a little while
Hush sweet baby don’t say a word
My heart softly tweets to a mockingbird
If that mockingbird don’t sing
Can I write you a love song created only for your being
As minds are sightseeing
Hearts fleeing
Timpani drums guaranteeing
Entwined of our divine wellbeing
Emotions freeing
Crooning of bodies heard as the day is long
Can I write you a love song
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 10:39 AM UTC
~
*Inundate your love
for this sacred village,
on bended knee,
facing the freshet,
supplicated hands pressed together,
one of grace, one of charity,
lips of sweet euphony,
whispering into the morning sun,
a language deep and pounding
inside your heart's timpani,
abiding like unsheltered waters
that nourish the vine*
~
Sep 8, 2021
Sep 8, 2021 at 10:38 AM UTC
Heaven
. . . Have Mercy . . .
Rest, rest, rest, for ye be none,
pitiful Fallen One.
Quivering bows flow over grave strings
bassoons and basset horns ring
pounding timpani’s announce:
Master of the Holy Choir
- - Renounced - -
Vain, fluttering heart
sublimely denounced, scorned;
fouled, ousted:
Horned.
Wailing strings, bassoons,
basset horns, thundering kettle drums
lift angelic voices to glorious requiem.
Pleas for Eternal Light’s remain
in wings refrain.
Heavenly Chorus' cradle to sustain,
mercy to soften
disdain.
The Holy Oracle contests --
to no avail.
Siblings’ choir protests.
Beauty beyond measure,
Angel of pure, Divine tessitura,
Absolution for Thee?
Foretellers of dark illusion
open Holy Scriptures to reveal
the drone of Eternal Damnation:
trumpets of ill
drag Thee to Hell.
Deep, ephemeral rhythms
exalt dancing strings,
seal destinies -- Kiss The Almighty King.
Glory be unto His Majestic Reign,
Will Supreme,
Tremendous,
Powerful, Holy Being.
Scribes record,
recite this dreadful day,
condemn Thee: Fallen One.
trumpets lament, strings mock
this unholy, forbidden way.
Bows flutter -- a memoir
of redemption.
Cries of confusion
dissipate
into muffled choirs,
murmurings
of deliverance.
Delicate chants
beg for forgiveness;
a Soul’s salvation, fusion.
To no avail!
Turbulent strings strike the Holy Duel
in wrath, writhing hatred,
majestic wings tumble --
twist to wrenched ******
Death devours, Birth becomes
the Fallen One.
Angelic dissolution --
distraught, agonized Ethereal,
Eternally beautify
these ghostly, trembling
winds, strings, harpsichord, drums.
Voices of brotherhood remembered,
cushion Angel’s earthly descent.
Breathe into infantile genius
heavenly symphonies
to sweeten a life
trapped, scorned,
condemned,
mourned
Love of God: Amadé
Jul 17, 2012
Jul 17, 2012 at 11:02 AM UTC
After a great while the paper elephants march
In their sparse herd they lumber along
One by one, their thick legs slam into the earth
Like pennies on a timpani
Leaving slight imprints in the dust
No one is quite sure where they come from
All we know is they just are there
Some raise their children before witnessing the elephants
A lucky few will even see them a second time at the end of their lives
It is not uncommon for generations to pass without the paper elephants
Sometime the periods between their journeys are so long the elephants are dissolved into folktale
The paper elephants are bestowed an almost supernatural quality
The stories are birthed in secrecy between the lights of candles
In the ears of the men in the corner
From the hushed lips whispered in acquiescence.
Every story is different
Every story has the same ending
Every story has the same moral
You do not touch the paper elephants
Perhaps the stories have some truth
If anyone knows the validity they have been dead for quite some time
No matter, man’s superstitious nature will see to the protection of the elephants
The paper elephants are called “paper elephants” because it describes them quite nicely
From a distance they look just like normal elephants
Lumbering over from side to side
But their skin is like paper
Their essence is like paper
They travel together
Even the old and young
When it rains the young hide under the larger elephants
Lest they get wet and melt into the earth
It is not uncommon to find the soaked remains of an elder elephant
Crumpled by a sad consequence
It always serves as a reminder
The old exist to protect the young
Most likely the elephants can be found roaming through our graveyards
Here their pace noticeably slows down
Often enough, they can be found sitting next to a tombstone
Resting their trunks over the epitaphs
Strange things happen when the elephants are in the graveyards
Sometimes laughter can be heard
Sometimes sobbing
As the elephants rest the blue mist rises from the graves
The blue is the most reassuring shade
The misty fog rises and fills the entire yard
Until it is absorbed by the paper elephants
With a long sigh the elephants continue their journey
After many such stops
The elephants arrive at the tree
Gnarled and ancient, it welcomes the elephants with silence
As it has for years and years past
It is here the elephants have yearned to arrive
Under the knobs and strikes of its branches
They bend the knee
The young watch to learn
The adults look up to the sky
And release all that they carry
The hopes, dream, and memories of those long gone
Ascend to the heavens
The paper elephants collapse exhausted but content
And look upon their children one last time
They weep before leaving this world
Not for their children’s sorrow
But because there are no paper elephants to carry them to the next world
Jan 16, 2012
Jan 16, 2012 at 3:37 AM UTC
I am a sheet of music
I start quietly building on the quartet of Strings
the Violin starts a shimmering sound
backed up with the viola
the solemn sound of the cello
and the ground breaking bass
united in harmony
There is a rest a break in note
I am part of a Symphony an overture
out of the heart of the music
a quiet roll
the timpani building in sound
full orchestra building in amazing ******
Fireworks, Percussion, Brass, Woodwind, Strings
Combined together in unity
performing to the quality levels of sound
the amazing Tchaikovsky in 1812
Creativity and Imagination
shaking the core of the earth
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
Symphony No.9 in d – minor, opus 125
Allegro ma non troppo
The silence gives way gently
to quiet tremolos rustling
beneath the beckoning
call of distant horns.
A melodic cell, nascent in violins,
spirals down to the somber depths
of cello and contrabass.
A sudden cataclysm
shakes the hall like thunder
heralding our universal birth.
Gales of sonic force
splashed like turbulent waves
against the rocky shores.
Drifting sans glass or sextant
on a sea of expanding mystery,
we gaze to the heavens
in hopes for a glimpse
of our father’s aetherial dwelling.
Molto vivace
With hands intertwined,
we dance in a ring
to the capricious airs
of the laughing gods
with Zeus himself on timpani.
So pass the wine and kiss your neighbor
and fill your glass to the brim!
For today is yesterday’s morrow
and tomorrow’s history.
Adagio molto e cantabile
There is no greater and more healing light
than the candles that shine
in the eyes of a friend
or loving spouse -
tenderly lighting our paths
through the storms and fogs
that cloud our lives.
Peace abides in a friend's embrace.
An die Freude
Against raging storms of
strife and sorrow.
we hear a healing voice
A calm cello hymn -
that migrates up to higher cords
of violas and violins -
breaking into joyous song
sung by trumpets, winds and drums.
Casting all shrillness of discord aside,
a baritone lines out Schiller’s ode -
and sings of Elysium’s daughter.
Quartet and chorus enter in
proclaiming hope for the human family,
A tenor raises a stein to valor
in the company of his friends.
The quiet pulsing of horns and winds
ushers in torrents of ecstasy.
Arms clasped in communal embrace,
we gaze to heaven on bended knees
then rise with a majestic fugue
that illuminates our souls
like a blazing Alpine dawn.
In a cyclone of passion,
Schiller's words and Beethoven's notes
entreat us to restore
what custom has rent apart
that each of us may live our lives
as brothers in heavenly sanctuary.
May 25, 2007
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 1:33 PM UTC
The world was never going to end
in fire.
It was never thought to.
Now. Thunder comes on.
The raincoat boleros around the street.
Momentous,
One two slow slow one two. Earth splits
/ an avocado, molten core discarded.
In the southern hemisphere they are waving flags.
Complimentary colors crawl up the sky tiding in.
They are dancing.
Ba-cha
-ta,
Me-ren-gue.
Their hemisphere Charybidises,
trees genuflected.
Quiet. The puddles are sleeping.
In the north. The hemisphere has run aground.
It capsizes. All the bands are going
down playing.
Rain panics off the timpani
prisming.
The brass cherubs in the clouds.
The strings red shift.
At the equator,
an umbrella floats:
1 bird inside it.
She prays in single syllables. Help.
Please.
Quack!
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 3:10 PM UTC
Voice resounding in my head
(timpani)
Melodyharmony
everythinginbetween
harmonymelody
In the bloom of your
sprite-like youth.
You were His first creation
Women constructed from your broken ribs
and all else from dust
as you shall be.
Bodies of cracked red earth and
Sunshine
Of absent goodnight kisses
and cigarettes.
Skin to skin
Sweat to sweat
(whose is whose)
You
made of
Brittle bones rattling through your sighs
Pulsing through the sinews of your legs
hidden beneath thin skin
pale
beating, feeble heart
Who can tell from my lying eyes
behind the blackandwhite bandanna
(peekaboo)
Of a folded
diaphanous paper moon
amid a field of stars.
Jul 25, 2011
Jul 25, 2011 at 2:25 PM UTC
spoon fed my keepsakes as nothing blots the sun so much
you teach me how to cringe in spun sugar. the nape of your
neck.
gleefully, we usurp the thicket of our mild dementia. sullen
joy equipped. a sumptuous dirge curdles the myth, your fins
***
as troubadours, we malinger in the pith of our blunt fruit. crust
removed from our daily bread. our basket of basilisks, bathe
in stone.
duel wielding our gazebos... we bivouac in our ambivalence, by
turns we move. you tip toadstools as i milk maidens for their
candelabras.
our palominos run. we do
violence to timpani and click mice.
pc
drifting in the cyberwocky. we transit the binary auto-bond
and paste
whats
clip.
blue thumbs thread cranberry noose. our ***** nods off. fronds
of juniper and cannabis slap the window pane. throughwhich
a *** mouse pounced on frond’s sway.
startled, we move the furniture of our eastern proclivities.
for thine is the kingdom
of our discontent !
swing-shift lap-dogs, trundle west of the east village. smell
of ****** and nag champa. idiots sting.
idiots braid zodiacs with greasy fingers. [ indeed ]
and
you
preach from your gut...
( your left breast marvelous with taint) and saltwater taffy.
we
laugh again-
at things we have
and now
only
harbor ghosts
where the rain
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
should have
been.
this is the new
intimacy.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 7:03 AM UTC
this is a poem about happiness.
this is also a poem about how great life is, see? here's a metaphor
comparing nature to the faultless
form of a pedastalized lover,
here's a description of the
effect of changes in air pressure
and localized temperature
fluctuations
on physical matter in a given area.
here's a bland truism that
anybody can relate to.
here's a couple rhyming stanzas
about the ethereal shifting of
connecting threads which
cause all life to dance upon
the cosmic stage like food poisoned marionettes.
here's an ode to the wrinkles of
my ******** and
the bits of fuzz that occasionally
find their home in my *****
here's a sonette to the drop outs
doing better than me
here's a dirge for the businessman
that hangs himself
and a jubilee for his widow
who earns nothing off his death
because he left his entire estate
to his catamite.
I'm writing a symphony in color,
notes of fermenting wood
dogshit and coffin dust.
the violas swoop and drone
the piccolos trill fast enough
to excise your gastrointestinal system
the barotone sax wheezes
and the timpani drum rumbles
(the flutes sit motionless because
**** flutes)
the pianists fingers are bleeding
hes banging with stumps now
his face contorted in ecstatic glee
as if the face of god has parted
the clouds just to scrape his gums
clean with his dietous ****
and lo faint is the whisper
which climbs and slithers
between the
false,
bash upon life with both hands.
here is life here is death
let me show your life
let me breathe your wretching
like squandered
like roots in the soil,
paint your everlasting cave drawing
in the face of your kitchen
and dance around a fire
let the embers lick your heels
til pagan viciousness overtakes
your quivering form.
gasp it in
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 2:47 AM UTC
It was 4am and snow
had fallen silently for hours
leaving a thick blanket of marshmallow skin
draped over all, and silence reigned
like a wise emperor whose subjects slept
without fear of Timpani.
Trees were over- burdened by drift
and bent like old men,
they stood
where their seedlings had taken root
centuries before villages
crept
up from the valley
to squat among them,
bringing chimneys and children,
women and men,
and all their
dreams.
It was late
and stillness shimmered
in moon-glow and cedar musk.
frozen stars,
all around
mounds of them
as gentle winds
plowed through the natural world
sweeping smoke from rooftops.
As
Giant owls; Their wings
cupping the elemental
patrolled pillows strewn about
the star chamber
of all Gods...
Up where an omnipotent Love
dreams on and on about giant owls
and how from here, the owls were gods,
patroling the nursery
of new gods.
Owls were floating in warmth, that had been
crushed into something
it had never suspected,
they were Owls
that kept the riff raff
outside
the perfect moment
for gods to catch some sleep...
they make it so
As Owls
too small too comprehend,
the vast Love
that loved them...
even so
a majesty was theirs
if not a mind that could have known - and not
unravel from the effort
of such Understanding
They were
savagely beautiful
in all their oblivious fulfillment
of the creator's plan;
they were
Lords
wearing crowns
without burden...
At 4am, the mice below the frozen stars that fell overnight were in there dens with uneasy sleep tickling their whiskers. Those mice out of sight of The Plan's Predator, unseen in the dirt pouch under rich soil and snow, The lucky ones continued to be blessed. The gods were sleeping... and they all loved mice... So at 4am, the mice below the frozen stars that fell overnight; they received all access to another day on earth... they enjoyed the consequence of Love's action, for owl eyes were denied cute things to look at but saw everything else. And beaks ... Well....
They would go wanting.
At 4am, all Mice who prayed for windows never got windows at all.
And the first snowflake to ever have a Red dream
was later made a prophet.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 11:27 AM UTC
The Summer Alphabet of Woman
Every summer, I learn a new language.
Every winter, it departs for warmer climes,
And its charms and naked arms, its own alphabet,
clean forgot.
Multi-lingual in the summer's peculiar
One language, one aleph bet,
But mega-millions of dialects,
Know them all cold, know them all, hot.
I speak Woman.
Summer is soft, shapely, sweet,
Clean, bare, lush in a sparse way,
And Woman is spoken thusly.
There are no harsh sounds,
Guttural exclamations, nein!
I speak Woman.
There is no ugly in the summer.
Ugly being an ugly word.
It cannot exist in an atmosphere of
Sun, greenery, sand, carefree days, vacations, no school.
There are no ugly women in the summer.
I could take this writ many places,
But if you are sputtering sexist or other labeling words,
Could not give a good god **** because in the summer,
There is no ugly, there is no prejudice.
And I still speak
Woman with an almost perfect fluency,
au naturel.
Gym clothes, short shorts, A-line skirts swishing in the breeze,
High, god, so high the heels, flats clip clopping, flip flopping
all over my heart,
But, it is the bare arms and the hints of summer
Cleavage, the short skirts, body hugging one piece fabrics
stretching from here to down there that does not
Hint,
the shoulder strap of the underthings that asks,
that commands me,
to wonder where it leads too...
Even the light wrap at night mocks me,
Like gift wrapping with a smile demure...a teasing blindfold...
All these say:
Write us poetry in our very own tongue,
Woman.
Will oblige.
I curve with curve of the ***** and
invert with S arc of the waist,
Mystifying, how it is the designed place
For my hands to grasp, and never fails.
The crayola colors of flesh variations,
Boggle the senses... How can tan and pale,
Dark and Light
Have so many
Symphonic variations?
Adagio, slow and leisurely, a pas de deux
For two eyes, then a
Timpani crash and thunder, as
Byron wrote,
"music arose with its voluptuous swell,"
Yes, swell...swell...swell
Enough.
My eloquence, no match for my
Fluency.
Late August, and my vocabulary is already
Diminishing.
I forget how to say in
Woman
*Without you I am nothing,
With you, I am more than everything,*
Tho I can no longer say it,
It is is still true and
Beyond belief.
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 12:36 PM UTC
The first day that I met you
My heart was pounding in my chest
But it could have been because
I ran there, to the Starbucks
On the Ave
The one you used to work at
But maybe it wasn't because I was
In such a rush
It could have been the coffee
I've heard that can increase your
Heart rate
Or maybe both of these are wrong
You see, I was born with a slight
Arrhythmia
Which messes with the way my heart beats
But maybe it was my hearts way of saying
This one is the one
There's no way of knowing
But ever since that day
I've been smitten;
Scheduling my whole day around
Getting to see you
And I even remember the first time
I rode in your car
Because
You were worried about me
But it became a regular thing
You drove me home on the nights
You worked a close
And each and every time I fell more and more
And you started to feel like home
Because home is not a place
But a feeling in the heart,
And maybe it was my arrhythmia
But I've felt it since the start
And then you up and left
You moved so far away
But you needed to be with your family
I just wish you could've stayed
So I guess I had to visit
Because I was craving you so much
You see, you're like a drug to me,
You're my ******
My crutch
Because I wouldn't make it
Through every day life
Without your voice to hold onto
And our conversations replaying
Over and over
In my painseeking mind
Play it through
Then rewind
Again and again
I reminisce you
And every time we're together it's like
The world stops
And as we lay together
You tell me
"I can hear your heart beating are you okay?"
And maybe you heard
The arrhythmia
Which is why you were concerned
But my heart pounds in my chest
Like the timpani in an orchestra
And every third beat is half the length of the others,
But that's just the arrhythmia
Feb 7, 2017
Feb 7, 2017 at 10:52 PM UTC
d r u m m e r
he's alive and i don't know what to do he's trying to beat life out of me using percussion to give me a concussion tuning me like a timpani and striking me like a snare dying in a rhythm improvised in a split second the mallets drew blood from somewhere i cant understand and i cant see anymore where am i am i dead yet
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 7:33 PM UTC
The timpani crash of thunder
The gentle side drum beat of autumn rain
While violin and cello echo the gusting wind
The Nightingale sweet sound of the piccolo echoes in the dusk
Early morn and the French horn mimics the pheasants call
And the well played flute could be the blackbird on the wall
But this can't be
Because man can never truly compose natures music
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 12, 2014 at 2:08 PM UTC
she looks at me as if to say,
you were simply,
an honest mistake,
made with good intention,
and nice at the time,
but long since forgotten,
a futile woodwind, in
an orchestral life,
struggling to make an impact,
on hyperbolic composition...
tell me, truthfully,
you don’t remember its pitch,
the call of its notes,
rang true, it seemed,
for you to imply,
it was not even heard,
makes a mockery of the
efforts made,
honestly, just once,
say its crescendoes
did not bellow, with
the strength of
a timpani, the
sweetness of flutes,
the heart of a sax,
say that the notes
that you sang at the time,
were a lie, simply,
an honest mistake,
and i'll leave this composition,
promising though it seemed,
broken and incomplete,
just as you’d like.
Dec 29, 2010
Dec 29, 2010 at 9:45 PM UTC
It’s close now, the vibrations deepen.
The timpani drums beat their final refrain.
The sky cracks; hot, white lines of accusation.
Let it break, so I can breathe again.
Jul 18, 2014
Jul 18, 2014 at 5:48 PM UTC
it’s nights like this
when my fingers are sticky and reek of popcorn
and my stomach purrs like an antique car
that i cease to exist
just a quiet little thief
tucked away in a prison of white stucco
stealing oxygen and racking up an electricity bill with a lopsided pink lamp
honey on my face
a “beauty treatment”
an edible headband sunken into my hair
gnats crawling between my eyelashes
black dots just as hungry as i am
the music of the wind plays outside my window
rattling long forgotten memories
and stirring up dust of the past
there’s a constellation in my hand
universes up my arm
purple lines swirling together into incoherent shapes
semi-deep whispers escaping my lips
that are pale and dry and hurt to touch
bad pop music crawls through crackly headphones
same song, different artist
and my sheets
animal print, picked from years past and never changed
due to either nostalgia or laziness, the world may never know
disengage themselves from my bed
twine around my ankles
sly cats looking for milk
and hunger eats at my heart
i count the minutes as they spin on
by the soft timpani as it thumps eighth notes through my chest
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 8:27 PM UTC
Have your eyes always had the scattered look
of a woman scanning the room for exits,
with
no time to consider the precious intimacies
of skin
or the softness of faces in repose,
the vulnerable sacraments of open hands...
And have you, too, misread the calming waters
perhaps misjudged their depths?
Have you ever, daydream laden or heavily burdened
startled at finding your self, now,
this moment
gaze cast intently
beyond the bounds
of too frail a body
perhaps through your car window
for the broad pause a stoplight can fill,
perhaps in the rain
contemplating bright reflections
aberrant red
and introspective green
through the timpani
of falling water,
feeling the unfortunate gravity
of some unquantified source
at an undisclosed distance,
reaching without knowing
to release
the restraining belt
while, beneath the various
and distracting chatter,
you strain to hear the systole
at the heart
of the music you know could be found
if only you were free to follow?
Feb 12, 2012
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:43 PM UTC
Jealous of the sea.
He was always jealous of the ocean,
How could he write songs like the waves?
The timpani drums on the breaking tide,
Crescendos written on corral staves.
Harmonizing whistles from a shoreline quartet,
And the gentle reeds blow a soft minor key.
How could he ever write songs like the ocean,
How could he ever compose like the sea.
Jun 27, 2018
Jun 27, 2018 at 4:18 PM UTC
A fortnight ago an Algerian masseuse anointed each note of my joints,
spread thumbed cursive over my shoulders and
back around to my chest;
she spelt out how I'd be shivering now knowing you were leaving.
And last week you led me to an acupuncturist where he said,
Rob Frost had quit his job on point duty to become a receptionist instead.
I knew it was ******** by the way you barked in the background.
I knew it was wrong from the rumble through the stud wall,
sound of timpani, of gusto's drawl ringing in my ears:
the resonance of windfall if saved 'in the best ISA for years!'
This has been the best February since records began
and I thank you for being a friend.
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 2:31 PM UTC
I do not want the solo,
Let me duet with you my dear.
Sweet harmonies, loud soft, high low.
My heart acts as percussion with you near.
A tune so perfectly pitched,
I lose my time, breath caught in my chest.
We pick up speed, entwined and bewitched.
Forte notes echo , regardless of rests.
I feel your pulse, and you mine,
Lost in the moment, our art.
Accenting each note through bar to line,
Aching passion from the start.
There is no need for strings or timpani
For tonight, you accompany me
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 4:41 PM UTC
The night he died he sat on the bed amid
my drum museum and thought about that time
at Christmas, how we hiked up Vincent’s Peak
to Leo Hightower’s log cabin with a box
of cornflakes and pancake batter all ready-made,
but with no knives or forks to eat them with.
He thought about that patch of pumpkins we
found frozen in the snow up there, a whole field full
of hued orange snow, once bright, now half eaten
by skunks and ***** Eau’ de parfum de melon.
Memory, Gramps, your new pied-á-terre. He smiled and
took out his teeth. He tapped my tin drum one
last time—my mother heard—to signal earth,
her mist, his wish, their presence, ours.
He died amid what pumpkins’ say when cut
apart, for it was Halloween that night, and all the timpani…
well, the timpani try to talk come Halloween,
you know , just as the pumpkins try to die.
Mar 20, 2011
Mar 20, 2011 at 5:42 PM UTC
Terry the Troubadour,
Tip-toeing tenderly towards terrible tension,
Touches Theresa the Trobairitz's threateningly terrific thighs:
Their two timid tongues -
Those terse types that tend to tie -
Twist together traumatically,
The tricky tips tamely threading through
To tickle their tiny tangential teeth:
"Tap. Tap."
Twice...
"Tap. Tap. Tap."
Three times...
The tender-tongued timpani teases them,
Taunting their tenderfooted tryst,
Timed tantalisingly to teenage tunes too terrible to tango to.
Sep 20, 2014
Sep 20, 2014 at 4:57 AM UTC
Medicine induced hallucinations,
body quivering with ache,
and I'm hearing the sweet chime of bells
In this hour of pain my mind orchestrates.
The next drop from the IV,
helps even greater than the last,
a constant drumming in my head
a beat which was not meant for dance.
The others around me dressed in white
say I'm doing fine and that I should rest,
but when there's music pouring into the room
Sleep is what I must detest.
Can they not hear the wondrous sounds?
The vibrations that reflects my pain?
Those invisible waveforms move visibly
or have I just gone entirely insane?
There is no music, they tell me.
It must be a side-affect to the medication.
The ambiguous tune that rattles my brain,
is death knocking, it is by my orchestration.
But who is to say what I hear
is not real?
The tune in my head I wish to transcribe
but I'm weak,
and barely clinging to life.
So no one will hear this stirring melody.
This is the song I hear towards the end of my life.
In these last precious moments
laying in my seemingly sterile bed,
the tune haunts me 'till I shut my eyes.
but the tune is my comfort, I do not dread.
So take me with you, oh humble melody.
I welcome your amplitude with open ears
Let's take a listen to what you're telling me,
I dare you to move me to tears…..
The warm blanket of the strings comforts me,
the brass section: a foundation, a rock.
Oh, but hear the timpani? It taps to the beat of my near-ending biological clock.
The woodwinds, a sympathetic harmony that aides my despair.
Their aloofness like the machine by my side, filling me with air.
*The main theme speaks to me directly, and I've been worn thin
but I swear the main line is "I've fought valiantly, but this battle I could not win."*
I do not have to open my eyes to see,
that the director of this symphony is myself.
I've created this music on my death bed,
and it was not meant for anyone else.
When I close my eyes this final night,
take a somber breath and leave.
I'll have my tune in my head,
and nobody for me to grieve.
Goodbye to this world around me,
now the nurse come to medicate.
One last final wave of my arms.
This song I hear, mine alone, I orchestrate.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 11:02 PM UTC