"troubadours" poems
I dream of rigged lacrosse matches
won in 4th quarter
overtime
of chess games won with en passant
(what exactly is that?)
of horses falling at the first hurdle.
I dream of Martian landscapes
through sand-dunes of heartache
because as a child, at McDonalds
I was never allowed a milk shake,
while in my waking hours I have
absolved a multitude of sins for
lapsed nuns, ringmasters and troubadours.
I have filmed riots,
marathons and abortions.
I have seen things
pickled in jars
holding open heavy doors.
I have tried,
like an idiot
to commit all this to
memory.
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 2:15 PM UTC
~
***TRAVEL TIME TROPICS TRIP TOURIST TOWN TUNNEL TOLL TICKET TAKER
TAXI TOKEN TRANSIT TRAIL TRANSPORT TRUCK TRACTOR TRAILER
TRAIN TRACK TROUBLE TEST TERROR TRAP TRIBAL TURF
THINK TALK TRY TRANSLATE TONGUE TIED
TEMPER TAMPER TIMEBOMB TICKING TRINKET TRADE
TARIFF TERMS TWINKLE TAX TREASURE TOTAL THEFT TAKEN
TWISTING THROBING THIRSTY THROAT TECATE TAVERN TWO TEQUILA
TRES TACOS TASTY TORTILLAS TEN TEQUILA TABLE TAB TIP TINA
TAWDRY TROLLUP TATTOO TABOO TOE TAP TICKLE TEASE
TERRIBLE TUNES TENOR TONES TRUMPETING TROUBADOURS
TWENTY TEENS TICK TOCK TARDY TIME TIRESOME TESTIMONY
TOTALLY TRANSGRESSED
TUMULTUOUS TRAVELER***
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 5:25 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
Here hang the wine-sotted troubadours of sadness and clouds,
~Having played serenas to paramours lipping at the cup of an evening bawd~
Like tethered donkeys now with their packsong of pastorela and alba,
No more musical mensurations of the ****** Mary, Cantigas de Santa Maria,
But slung over the railings of dawn-blotted taverns or courts of renown,
Here hang the wine-sotted troubadours of sadness and clouds,
Like drinking gourds, their stringed citherns dangle from their shoulders,
Leaking the strummed honey-wine of sound like the retchings of the nearby sea.
Jul 31, 2019
Jul 31, 2019 at 11:33 AM UTC
She said 'where you off to now, Tumbleweed"
I said "i got so many places to go,
it might be what i want it might be what i need
it might be the strangers touch ill never know"
its a lonely way to go the road is long you know
i walk the path of troubadours from long ago
the moon she is my light
the sun she is my night
the pen the only compass ive ever known.
Where you off to now, Tumbleweed
you set your course or you just blowin in the breeze
just like ships in darkness pass
too far to touch too close to last
to grow the soul you know you've got to plant a seed
Tumbleweed
(c) 2013 CJM
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 4:04 PM UTC
Something would come of it yet
The last cocaine-wild, cosmic amphetamine eyes
Howled down the eastern hills
To the city’s beckoning lights
Tramps and harlots light fire from their palms
Blown pupils dark in love sick, longing eyes
Growing with the wild, restless wind
In lustful, glamorous disguise
And there the angel of the evening
Sat upon the sultry heat
As troubadours gaze into the mirror
She pours them pills in restless fleets
And as the city settles
And the western wind starts to blow
The dizzy euphoria sinks away
As their vision starts to close
So dawn breaks the singing night
The buzzing high leaves the blood
The poets and painters
Let their stream of consciousness flood
Torn rhymes cover the wall
Where artists and addicts have met
Where splattered tunes had brayed
Something came of it yet.
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 4:52 PM UTC
~~~
Happy Hanukkah Brother Nat!
~~~
*this poem is not for young lovers,
seasoned soldiers of the heartfelt only need apply,
give me my merry mercy-naries to save me
from criminal holiday insouciance,
shoot me with the rounds of caring,
that come so fast
and last as long as I can
nod and wink...*
~~~
used to drink inspiration
from Manhattan sidewalk rain riveted cracks,
turn half overheard street conversation snatches
into half decent poems by Nat(chez),
professors turning phrases, upbringing a brain ratcheting,
choreographers, dancing in body and spirit and word,
in summation, a thief of opportunity...
these days, the pattern prevailing,
the El Niño de Natalino,
is drawing up works
from the wealth of messages and comments,
my troubadours, my y'all youse guys, share,
so as I compose,
not knowing where this goes,
I'm just simple knowing,
that a heartfelt reach out,
addressed as
Happy Hanukkah Brother Nat!
deserves the recognition of its sweet intent,
in a lyric all its own,
like a traditional festival
Hanukkah jelly donut (true1)
t'is the seasonal affectation of salutations
all commencing with happy,
never struck me as anything deeper
than surficial superficial,
but this time its textual emendation -
the inclusion of genuine brotherly love,
loops, Humpty Dumpty cracks and swoops,
and here I am fastening word combos,
when the clickty clack of the clock
says uh-uh, poem in the making,
natural verbal child birthing, sleep hours docked,
and here I am,
begetting instead of shushing
a day-older brain to get-thee-to-a-hideaway...
*this poem is not for young lovers,
seasoned soldiers of the heartfelt only need apply,
give me my mercy-naries to save me
from criminal holiday insouciance,
shoot me with the rounds of caring,
that come so fast
and last as long as I can
nod and wink...*
sooner than later it will be the Fourth,
and in my eyes a day-deserving of a fireworks spectacular,
though the month matters not,
the sentiments of brotherhood and live love,
independent and freely given,
deserves enhanced ignition recognition
and herein supplied...
you had me at the greeting so fleeting,
then ask my advice,
is there to be had a greater compliment,
so my mien and demeanor are now modified
an oath sworn, till the infamous 31st,
every passerby and child
will be bequeathed a shockingly rowdy,
Happy and Merry,
sincerity coated
and tinged with you know what...
~~~
Dec. 3, 2015
nyc
11:12 pm
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 11:27 PM UTC
Men have died
And angels cried,
All for love.
I have wept,
And secrets kept,
All for love.
Kings on thrones
And men of bones
Have shuddered,
All for love.
Nations have clashed
And creatures thrashed,
All for love.
Will you ever cry,
And inside die,
All for love?
Poets and troubadours
Have sung its praises.
Playwrights and authors
Have written its woes.
But who in the time
Of the cavemen would have
Thought love could ever
Be shown by a rose?
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 9:32 PM UTC
Of splendid thrones of gold
or treasures manifold
Of jewelled caskets
or lavish banquets
Of Emirs and rajahs
Of Sultan and Shahs
Of kings and queens
Of rulers and emperors
Of sparkling crowns
or flowing gowns
Of their subservient stewards and obedient pages
Of their stalwart squires and servile knaves
Of poor humble, docile minions
who tended to regal pavilions
And obeisantly carried royal palanquins
Oh and some were real life harlequins
Of castles and palaces
of abounding gold and silver
in ostentatious regal splendour
The sidelined fanning maids in waiting
Yet to me only one thing worth noticing
The minstrels who came to sing
from afar for the queen and king
For I'd rather be a poetess for kings
so to my tunes swayed a kingdom
than I be the king of mere subjects
and be filled with regal boredom!
So I could join ranks of
troubadours
and sing for the king
some folklores.
Dec 7, 2017
Dec 7, 2017 at 3:37 AM UTC
*Evergreen soldiers at the whim of Alraus
I've had a recurrent dream of the enlisted warriors
abandoning their post , occupying the fertile grassland
in a chess type move to gain control
Free of shade , of root-bound thirst , of choking
moss gathering unchallenged in overpopulated arbors
A celebration courtesy of the Robin Knights , the Chickadee troubadours ,
the Cardinal gentlemen at the Court of Queen Chestnut
Slash , sugar , loblolly and white oak
Persimmon , hickory , honey locust and dogwood
The myrrh of gardenia , magnolia , honeysuckle and tea rose
Earthen red clay , white sand , black loam and kaolin
Grasshopper cellist , cricket flautist , a chuckling crow with a
Spanish guitar
The toad trombones , a bluebird violin solo , a mockingbird reads
a touching poem that even sways the worker ants into a brief pause
The Old Forest becomes pasture and the grassland young woodland
The dove cue the night , the katydids croon to the moon ,
the bullfrogs 'pooka-dooka' and the lovers swoon* ...
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 5:24 PM UTC
Shadows dance on the moonbeams,
and you can hear the screams of the souls on the old ghost road
The wild wind blows, unearthing the bones under stones in the old ghost road
The Lantern's light flickers on, still alive, never lost
Guides my way down the old ghost road
Traveling alone, riding out the cold as I brave the old ghost road
And when the moon shines like it does tonight
I love to watch them dancing
They say the departed can see you in the moonlight
And they seem to smile at me
Finding my way home
I know where I must go
Across the lands of death and snow
In the dark of the night,
By the light of the moon,
I journey on
Down the old ghost road
Lovers, warriors, troubadours, their spirits wander with me in the dust and silver mist
The stars, like purest diamonds, glistening above us, Astral sea of phantasmal bliss
The Moon, a shining goddess, blessing all the earth, her rays a tender kiss of sight
Behold!
Somehow the whole wide world is so beautiful
At the ruins of the old ghost road
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 7:33 PM UTC
*a follicle of light is falling from the house of our master
troubadours warp our imagination
with jasmine and other heady fragrances
gypsy eyes steal salt water from tides
and return them to our adjacent lives
slaves and slaveholders, slews of cattle
ranchers, and fathers battle
keep mustard seeds by the bedside
and burn irises like incense
hours fly by and leave us hurting
in piles of rusted shirts and clothing
her luck has begun to expand but man still demands his fate
so redecorate your cottages and receive the visitor's hate
make music burst throughout the garden
as lonely brushstrokes reach out to touch your bottom
i am moving, doing, and having faith only in the theater
she is carrying fetid water with feet bloodier
than the skyscrapers bound to her posterior*
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 11:48 AM UTC
~for Paul & Art~
<>
melancholic, contemplative, introspective,
put on the songwriters of the Sixties,
looking for the comfort of old songs
that I once knew complete, from the days
when I believed, knew my own true self complete,
the tablet lifted, the spirits keening, a forth
will be coming, to soothe and purge, commence to dress my own wounds,
Whitman would be attentive, perhaps
a tad sympathetic, tho my wounds are
entirely self-inflicted
and alone, cry out for an assembly
of words, well chose, smoothly chaotic,
mirroring the lathe of my sharpened
disarrayed confusions, two old troubadours
come to comfort, with sweet harmonies,
and simple, but novel rhymes &
syncopated rhythms that all can
carry, sing along, all of us smiling
with ease, we cross the borders of each
other’s mind, paring snippets into
poetic clasps that keep us well attached,
filing away the roughened edges that
we all in common posses, and like
jigsaw pieces, we finish each other’s sentences, and we emote satisfaction
with smiles, laughs, sighs and sarcastic
groans, our words grasp, connect and
ease is in the air, there but for this grace,
we go together, you and I,
sailing away from
troubled waters
Nov 11, 2024
Nov 11, 2024 at 8:21 PM UTC
The 352 Blues
this city treats the poor
with swift unkindness,
but if you peel your eyes,
you don't necessarily have to always
sing the ole 352 Bleecker Blues
the eyetalian storekeeper,
gives us morning java,
when we sing for him on the guitar,
The Star-Spangled Banner,
refills, if we add America the Beautiful
they say that heat rises,
but that don't seem true
in our third floor walk up
on rue 352 Bleecker Street,
the cold companion enters
thru the busted stain glass window
no matter, no cares,
we light the fireplace,
with wood and anything that'll burn,
we scavenged from the street,
pallets and newspapers,
rent bills overdue,
yesterday's 352 truths
at two AM, the cops, in their cars
cooping, fast asleep, only just us,
the johns, the ****** and troubadours,
walking the streets looking for
free stuff to burn
pass the hat for tips
next to the arch,
enough for daily bread
but we get our ***** and ****
for free, just for singing the 352 blues
even when down and out
on the village streets,
bleak on Bleecker street,
you gotta sing the 352 blues,
especially when you're
riding high and living cool,
down on easy Bleecker Street
in 1968
~~~~~~~
Before you ask me if this true,
save your breath,
the answer is
Which part?
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 11:50 AM UTC
O pretty troubadours!
Play flutes made out of wood.
Your tunes remind us softly
Of old and ancient moods;
Of the medieval ladies,
Who strolled down fields of green,
Of lovers, speaking gently,
Not wishing to be seen.
O pretty troubadours!
Play loud your clear songs.
Let melodies be answered,
Let melodies endure.
(c)kRu, 1997
Jan 29, 2010
Jan 29, 2010 at 10:10 AM UTC
O graunt O God that when I do descryue
Lustrous Selene, Qheene of sable night,
Readers by reading sie the Qheene aliue
Shining with lighte as beautifull as bright.
God-giuen gifte of beavtie is the sight
Of her who shineth like a falling starre
Maintaining still her place in heauens height
High up aboue whair heavens orbits are.
Aboue our heads so neare and yett so farre
Shineth the goddesse faire since auld lang syne.
The troubadours melodious repertoire
He doth performe within her silver shine.
Romance doth quick the pulse and pull the tide:
The loue of God is giv'n unto his bride.
May 25, 2024
May 25, 2024 at 4:01 PM UTC
Muddled words are stuck
-here don’t you see-
If I could I would give them to you.
Oh please don’t cry, it’s unbecoming
You do understand don’t you?
Let us walk and speak of nothing
But
Perhaps the breeze
Or
Maybe the troubadours
Singing of unattainable love.
This is all very wonderful
Please my boy don’t cry
Soon enough out will come the fireflies.
We will watch them twinkle between
The weeping willow branches, and
We will laugh.
Ha Ha Ha
It shall be a glorious day
And night
And soon you will forget my muddled words
-Now you don’t see them anymore-
And we shall laugh and sing
Sep 19, 2010
Sep 19, 2010 at 8:45 PM UTC
The Olde English poem,
The Holy Rood,
Was mystical and new.
The courtiers liked what they heard,
The troubadours sang out their truth.
Then Beowulf gave it design;
A plot with characters,
Some nearing divine,
With beasts and bravery bounding;
A new literature was sounding.
Soon Canterbury clopped along,
Lyrical poetry became song,
And morphed into Paradise,
Lost and found in common meter,
With angelic imagery, good and evil,
Undone in metaphysics.
Round the Lakes the poets roamed,
Windermere, Grasmere, and Dorothy's home.
They walked in beauty, day and night,
Warned the world was too much with us,
That nature was our friend.
Gave intimations of our end,
We still need listen to.
Jan 2, 2018
Jan 2, 2018 at 11:11 AM UTC
Would Be suitors, you sing to me having migrated to your breeding pond
All the night long you court me with your lively mating song
As I lie in my bed eavesdropping on you troubadours of princely green
I marvel and delight at the thought, that I may have been chosen your beloved Queen
I imagine you...watchful, eager with handsome green bodies adorned with bronze and brown
Banjos with loose strings strapped to your bodies tightly, as you hop around
Yellow throats bursting open with hopeful songs of praise
For all eligible green ladies with lovely long green legs
Long may you live and may your homes be filled with throngs
Of charming little boys like you, who fill our lives with song
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 12:56 PM UTC
Sitting high upon a hill
Watching a dancing painting of
A rhapsody of regal hues
Splashed across the horizon
Springtime's trying to debut
Precious flowers around my feet
Grasses wave in a balmy breeze
Trees' branches tipped with Spring's new green
Trees filled with swooning songbirds that
Sing to me twilight's melodies
Before they gently tuck their heads
To fly off into heaven's dreams
The gentle arc of Gaia pulls
Us all into another night
But not before we're enraptured
By the Star that bids us goodnight
The cold chill of Winter is gone
Gaia awakes another year
Nothing ever delights me more
Than to be witness to Spring's cheer
All quiets as the Golden Orb
Dips behind the vast Blue Ridge
Then the troubadours of night
Come out to begin their chorus
I cannot make myself go home
I want to take in every scent
Every shadow, every light
Each sound, Spring's every sentiment
The floral heavenly landscape
Replaced now by a canopy
Of Diamonds strewn across the night
Clusters of souls, signs, dazzling
Still I must bid this day goodnight
And fall into dreams of my own
Perhaps I'll find there the sweet birds
Who serenaded me with song
Then Awaken to another
Day, in childlike awe of a new
Dawn, in which the Golden Star will
Create a masterpiece anew
With its sunbeams dripping hues
That God will compose for me
Another day of miracles
Created by the Dreamer's Dreams
Apr 19, 2013
Apr 19, 2013 at 10:15 PM UTC
She listened as
the silence filled her being .
She knew the flowers were broken
as was the stillness in the woods.
Malice of Starlight.
Brittle with frost ,
Adrift
Tribeless
in the naked night of dreams
Her lava flowed
In an unrelenting
Quiet fire of silence .
She needed a resurrection
As her storm broke volcanic.
With a simple but deadly logic
She hung on the moon .
A raining heart plucked
From a midnight stream of wraith .
As her stream rushed darkly
Beneath a meadow of ****** white
The eastern sky started to glow .
A whisper in the air ,
A softening light
Troubadours abound
and sing her sad song .
Her soft whisper was first
felt on the last coast of midnight
A wounded soul,
highly wrought pain .
An owl flew low and hid
by the lonely crippled creek .
Past the quivering lips of dawn
a bitter seed erupts
Like the falling bliss
of an ancient creed .
Epic silence
Except for the crunch
As she steps to the grass .
Mar 8, 2018
Mar 8, 2018 at 10:37 PM UTC
*Meadowlarks in the canebrake
Twilight hints with fuchsia trickery
Animated waning Moon , sylvan
troubadours in perfect tune
September Season of the Witch ,
Barn Owls cry out in perfect pitch
Starlings crowd field barns , Mockingbirds
spin Ghostly yarns , brown leaves crumble
in the eerie wind , Stallions whinny sending
shivers across bare skin
Cowbells clang in the pitch black night
Coyotes howl from the hillside
Tin roofs clap under their own power
Wind chimes sparkle and call , hour after hour* ....
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 8:35 PM UTC
burgeoning geniuses of rhythm and song
hugging the blues with their guitars
on street corners or in ghetto blues bars
that cry forth clinging laments, soulful chords rising tolling
ancient sadness, exquisite madness
musicians finding their identity
as troubadours of the anguished heart
by way of a beggar's cup
a little luck
and those shouted encores worth more than a million bucks
Apr 4, 2017
Apr 4, 2017 at 10:47 AM UTC
There are dreamers
in the sunlight,
away from
beds of warmth.
Images and wonders,
a theater
of possibility,
performing behind
the eyelids
of modern
troubadours.
Poets in
moonlight,
but actors
by day,
weaving
fairytales
of color
in an age
imbuing
grey
Nov 10, 2018
Nov 10, 2018 at 12:45 PM UTC