"trumpeter" poems
This trumpeter of nothingness, employed
To keep our reason dull and null and void.
This man of wind and froth and flux will sell
The wares of any who reward him well.
Praising whatever he is paid to praise,
He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways
To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk;
To cheat us legally; to bluff and bilk
By methods which no jury can prevent
Because the law's not broken, only bent.
This mind for hire, this mental **********
Can tell the half-lie hardest to refute;
Knows how to hide an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter needs the Human Touch,
Skillfully artless, artlessly naive,
Wears his convenient heart upon his sleeve.
He uses words that once were strong and fine,
Primal as sun and moon and bread and wine,
True, honourable, honoured, clear and keen,
And leaves them shabby, worn, diminished, mean.
He takes ideas and trains them to engage
In the long little wars big combines wage...
He keeps his logic loose, his feelings flimsy;
Turns eloquence to cant and wit to whimsy;
Trims language till it fits his clients, pattern
And style's a glossy **** or limping slattern.
He studies our defences, finds the cracks
And where the wall is weak or worn, attacks.
lie finds the fear that's deep, the wound that's tender,
And mastered, outmanouevered, we surrender.
We who have tried to choose accept his choice
And tired succumb to his untiring voice.
The dripping tap makes even granite soften
We trust the brand-name we have heard so often
And join the queue of sheep that flock to buy;
We fools who know our folly, you and I.
11.1k
Gather 'round children
To hear the story of
Obsessionman
Our extremely watchful protector
Bitten by a radioactive trumpeter at a young age
He obtained the super power
Of constantly thinking about the moment he was bitten
His power only grew stronger with time
When people told him his power was ****
His power grew
When people mentioned the toxicity of his radioactive waste
His power grew
And when he encountered his arch nemesis; the trumpeter
Everything grew
You should've seen how fast he flew
He soared quicker than
All the ******** he had once considered important
But when flying at such high velocities
Civilians become interlopers
And interlopers become super villains
Which is no laughing matter
Aquaman went comatose
And Comaman got aqua toes
Sacrifices we were willing to make
But then God intervened
And Obsessionman ***** Him
Which we all agreed was kind of ****** up
Decidedly so...
I mean...
What can you say about your hero when he ***** God?
But that's the beauty of Obsessionman
All he requires from us
Is our disgust, indifference, and hatred
To feed his strength
Until the day he is powerful enough
To fulfill his destiny
And face his arch nemesis
The trumpeter
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 4:58 PM UTC
the sun matters.
i'm just saying.
it matters.
it matters that things
be alive
and green
it just does.
eddie pepitone matters.
playing songs on repeat for hours on end matters.
rangpur matters.
ice cream friggen matters.
i'm just saying. it does.
having a brother that gets it
matters.
laughing so hard i cry
matters...it really does.
even the trumpeter on my balcony
thinks so.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 7:14 PM UTC
Delia
once seduced
the house maid
in half term
home from school
some posh place
where she had
with success
oft bedded
the new young
maths teacher
whose glasses
thin wired
she took off
before ***
in her room
for extra
tuition
(her father
from his fat
wallet paid
for extra
maths not ***
then after
leaving school
and the young
maths teacher
(sad female)
and having
bedded her
young cousin's
French nanny
she went to
some college
to study
the cello
and music
she had ***
the first day
with the thin
trumpeter
on the floor
above her
a girl with
luscious lips
and dark eyes
who after
a good ****
could play like
Miles Davis
so cool that
Delia
would play her
cello ****
like lovers
embracing
she and her
instrument
then have ***
to the sound
of Coltrane's
saxophone
and the girls'
******
wanting more
sighs and moans.
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 3:19 PM UTC
I put on a Count Basie LP
on the blue covered
record-player,
Tilly lay on the bed
filing her finger nails,
looking at them
making sure
they were even.
I looked out
the bedroom window
onto the grass and hedge
and to my right
the apple orchard.
I loved the saxophone solo
on the Basie LP,
moved my head
to the beat.
Did your mum believe
you went to stay
at a friend's house?
I said.
Yes, she seemed to,
Tilly said,
taking her eyes
from her nails
to gaze at me.
Had to be convincing,
and lie of course,
Tilly added,
looking at me
more intensely.
Which friend
did you say?
I asked.
Pretend friend,
I haven't a friend
I can lie about
so convincingly,
Tilly said.
I guess so,
I said,
turning to face her
lying there on my bed,
the trumpeter soloing
on Basie track.
Doesn't your mum
mind us being up here
in your room?
Tilly said.
I said I wanted to you
to hear my new Basie LP,
I said.
I don't like jazz,
I like the Beatles
and Bob Dylan,
Tilly said.
Had to say something,
I said.
We had good ***
at Uncle's place
didn't we?
she said,
smiling,
putting away
her nail-file.
We had.
I remembered it
as I sat on the bed
looking back at her,
wishing we could here,
but it would be too risky
with my mother
just downstairs,
and my young brother
likely to come up
any minute.
Is your place
ever empty?
I asked.
Seldom,
Tilly said,
Mother is nearly always there,
doing her housework
or the garden
or preparing meals.
The Basie big band
was playing out the track
and then stopped,
and there was silence.
I leaned to her
and kissed her lips.
She put her arms
around me,
and we held close.
Lips to lips stuck.
We wanted to,
but we couldn't
worst luck.
May 14, 2016
May 14, 2016 at 3:28 AM UTC
"Ezekiel saw de wheel; way up in de air
And de littl' wheel run by faith, oh yes, an' de big wheel run by de grace of God
'Tis a wheel in de wheel in de middle of de wheel way Lawd in de middle."
Choir songs are fun and catchy and I have to sing them every God **** day.
They are all written by some funny looking black guy named James in the earl 1900's.
"John said the city was just four square, walk in Jerusalem just like John
and he declared he'd meet me there, walk in Jerusalem just like John,
Oh John oh John what do you say, walk in Jerusalem just like John."
Most of them are about God and faith but sometimes you actually feel them.
It's weird, they make you feel spiritual. A whole class full of students singing can do that to you.
"All this night shrill Shaunteclear, days proclaiming trumpeter,
claps his wings and loudly cries, "Mortals! Mortals! Wake and rise!
See the wonder days are under, and through his will good be done!""
Sometimes you don't even know what they're about, no kidding, but they still feel nice to sing.
The ringing of the Sopranos and the roar of the Baritones is awing, it really is.
"And the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,
how the twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle,
in the crystal lime-de light."
It's cool when you sing poetry, like Poe or something like that. It doesn't give you the same
feeling but it's still cool, if you can get into that kind of stuff.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 1:08 AM UTC
he is six feet tall, curly and blond, and john-lennon-glasses
he purses his lips, trumpeter-sans-trumpet, wherever he goes
he is the only one on the sidewalk
even when everyone is on the sidewalk
he smiles at you
“how are you today!”
and reminds you he is from west virginia
he cooks corn on the cob in a too-small kitchen
and stops after one beer most of the time
he’s the neighbor of neighbors and he’s
the trumpeter of trumpeters
if you’re listening
and he might be alone but you’d never know it
he'd offer his couch, an ear
a cup of sugar
if you should ever need
a trumpeter
May 15, 2013
May 15, 2013 at 6:40 PM UTC
"THOUGH logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,'
Or so did Tom O'Roughley say
That saw the surges running by.
"And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
"If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What's dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?'
Or something of that sort he said,
"And if my dearest friend were dead
I'd dance a measure on his grave.'
1.6k
A sallowest silence drips,
drop by drop,
into open muddy palms
The ripple in the gathering cup
of hand, undulates within soul
like poignant ocean waves
eat away at the sands of time ,
just below where
a lighthouse beacon beckons
shining from someplace I can’t find
A hidden pathway
lies untrodden
beneath a thousand
dew drop clad ferns ,
fronds bestrewn with autumn’s
befallen sleight of hand
swaddled in her fading
manifest guise
Where wild mushrooms
rise blindly from
resplendent darkness
beneath silken earthen moss ,
to teach the parables ,
how fleeting a moment passes
The moment enwrapped
in nature's solicitude ,
the only shelter
mother nature's own refugees
whom dwell in an ever fugitive
sense of belonging
Fallen Lichen scattered
like wild feathers ,
traces from a higher ground ;
sown bread crumbs
of the heavens ,
abandoned like slowly falling
snowflakes upon a labyrinth
coursing beyond
emerald dank bejewel
Leading me willingly onward
beyond belated familiarity ,
exiled void of affinity
a Trumpeter swan
in search of wapatos
The stone cold silent languor
rises up through
thickly grasping moss
Wind stirs the ennui
with a breath of kindness ,
chilling a body in a soul
as cold as lonely stone ,
sheathed beneath
its hard yet fragile disguise
A twisted pathway
leading somewhere
I yearn to follow ;
somewhere unknown
beckoning from
deeply hidden hope
and its urgent calling
Somehow the uncertainty
of the path I am drawn
makes me feel
a little less removed
Assured by the gentle touch
deeply rooted ancient earthen spirits ,
beyond doubt , I’m never alone
deep beyond wooded margin
Cocooned in creation’s sanctuary
mother nature’s own refugee ...
wild is the wind
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 10:53 AM UTC
The night is breathing apartment aroma
and the drunks are tumbling
d o
w n
w a
r d
through marina side
alleys
where the
Jamaican trumpeter
sharpens the brickwork
with clamor
brass rifle bullet sounds.
I get my depression half price at the supermarket,
that man made melancholia/
dehydrating all senses/
gunpowder to a broken barrel.
Sleepless for that distant girl explosive!
She's moving to the big city,
yeah there she goes!
To live in a place where many go to die.
Mango the sky
and ashclouds-
autumnal daisy/
center sunshine/
opalescent ecstasy
reminding one of Indonesia
and Darjeeling balcony evening
on the cubist block
on Kuta
on dreams and nightmares simultaneous
(THE PARANOIA OF PARASITES)
wet air
vapor rain
February pain
in the July bone!
Celebration VOICENOISE
passing phantom
thru paisley sheet
corridor.
Life is strange..
the strangeness of days
receding via the mattress
to time
and memories and
remembering the happenings
of ceremonies
this year
past year
CAVALCADE!
SPECTACULAR STARLIGHT!
OVERVIEW THE FIELD OF TENTS
AND LOVERS!
Life is an unrecognizable chameleon
T R A N S M U T E
to some other color
iridescent
(Where do I go? where do I go?)
Say by December the
name of my Valentine
by boardwalk boreal
and I recall
the current
Summersun
pearl/red
beautiful and beating
(BEDAZZLED LIKE
THE HEART)
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 3:57 AM UTC
Start now knowing joy,
that’s an order,
overcome a deepening solitude.
Like a bee at a bugle
or me at the deli
on Third Avenue.
I said to Joe when do you think this weather will break?
He jokes, April.
That’s no joke. Weak creatures die and the strong barely survive.
Half a year goes by
another cancer checkup.
Cheer up. Any weather’s
better than no weather at all.
There’s always governance
even when there is no government.
My candidate drops out
after Iowa. Why do I always lose
at politics and poker?
Peace at last!
No lawnmowers, no leafblowers.
Big comfy couch.
Meditate on this: Do what has to be done.
Find your lover gazing at the moon
and take your garbage to the dump.
Your web site evaporates
and your possessions are thrown in the dumpster
except your trumpet which finds its way to a future trumpeter.
Jun 8, 2021
Jun 8, 2021 at 6:38 AM UTC
Messy, 'specially on Sundays.
Feet a'shamble from stumblin' drunkhappy.
"It's all good, baby," Blakey yells over the drums.
Bourbon flavored women hard to swallow
with their jagged softness. Smoking section (whites) stares
down dance floor (everyone else) with guilt induced jealousy.
Coltrane's back in Philly studyin.'
Pinstriped chuckle from the Rosenbergs;
kinetic energy giving birth to the cool.
The trumpeter's high turns his tool into a weapon.
The sound briefly stealing him from his demons.
"I'll find a guy when I finish my set."
Black and white televisions: blacks in white suites
Smiling china white for an all white audience.
The movers, to this point, have only been black.
Little hero Harry thinks
blacks and whites should die on the battlefield together.
Everyone's starting to get it.
"That guitar sweeter than my old lady."
Charlie and Miles holding each other's needles
while Thelonious and his hard candy go bad.
Leanin' on bricks in a back alley.
The circle passes the joint around like the good times.
"Just keep em rollin."
The skirts expand and deflate wildly to the rhythm.
Pure sweat melting into the floors like drops of water on roots.
A melody never heard before.
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 7:36 PM UTC
I know a girl called Ruby
Whose little sister is quite groovy
Her name is Eva and she shouts and screams!
Makes us want to disappear!
Ruby always winds her up till she screams
Then gets told off
But Eva has a secret weapon
When she sees Rubys least expecting
There comes a pong without a sound
A trouser cough? A silent pop?
Oh my god she's done a boff!
Run for cover she's let one off
Or was it mummy?
Oh blame the dog!
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 8:28 PM UTC
I want it smooth
Poetry, rough and smooth
Therefore, play me the
rough melodies, not to
the sensual ear
You soft trumpeter,
keep on playing though
Just get new lungs
Change is good
So play the trombone
Play it hard,
I want it rough
When my heart beats faster
than the speed of light, and
my mind experience,
a forceful mental awakening,
a turnaround, new perspective.
Rough is soothing
Rough is healing
That rough melodica.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 6:21 PM UTC
On such a day to wait
With what you have to forgive beside you
Always twisting dry leaves into small pieces
To set structure
To set fire
To an absence I’ve been most comfortable with
Something to always be picked upon
Whether it’s conscious to me
Or not
I haven’t been such a bright color
And I’ve keep out of the spectrum
Don’t break me open
To that of night in which I became
I wide eyed my best
Within breath too shallow
If my mad ghost self were to haunt
To drive out
Binding your spell like smoke from lips
Blanket down hollow earth
Let him be gone from my violence
Violence the way it came
You thought faith to overcome the devil
And the faith of the devil reaches
Down your neck.
——
By late, you came in the night in black shoes
I know you can’t think good of the devil
To my side you can with the faith I use
Of the spirits true, rest the highest level
Back of your eyes to the blood you swallow
Leaving it the last trumpeter to cry
The night that you brought to my own hollow
The way I remember you used to try
Now it seems that the worst can’t start new
Nothing of mine is to keep as my own
But nothing could be used to see through you
Either way nothing could pass through a stone
No my dear, you’re not alone but with me
That ride, I fell off and skinned my good knee.
—–
Be that you are a devil in black shoes
The words from the mountain you brought to your feet
For a lover to let your eyes down
Standing naked
Back to the fire
Where you let your children burn
To lay on their ashes
I think the woman sitting from
a ways down smells
Come with me
You come from love
Little boy blue eyes.
—–
The carpet installers are dead, so dead
Peter, the boss, lays under the floor now
So the job wont be finished, the room red
And the carpet bare, the carpenters go
Their last task to carpet the funeral home.
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 5:41 PM UTC
A harbinger he was born
a puppet to dirt farmers in the
fatalistic empires of lost liberty
He spent his boyhood drifting in aimless
pursuit of a less broken home
but his past eats him from within
His greedy grasping hand is fear
with self indulgent dark eyes he
comes to my haven and bringing
his hand in tow and lays its sweaty meat
on my soul
Its cold dead feel crawls down my spine
like migration of hope to forgotten places
He is a mirthless man
the trumpeter in the parade of dying
quests to find a better future
He is preaching his own brand of God
from the poorhouse soapbox
shouting wildly with his hands
he is a small man in a tall frame
who feeds on poverty of pocket and soul
preys on the weak and unwary
he is a apothocary to the souless
Jul 18, 2013
Jul 18, 2013 at 8:37 PM UTC
I made notes of docking posts
pointing out to murky reflections
of tourists that didn’t have time
for a souvenir mug or a picture
with a black trumpeter content with his brass,
and nothing else, blowing life into the seagull
sky, making the clouds pop and drop spray-
mist jazz, which accompanied his trumpet
with a gentle washboard scrape.
He beat his heel to the thousand pin-drops
of passerby earrings, crab sweatpant draw-
strings, and trawl nets dissolving into the sea.
Baltimore filled the margins
of a travel notebook alongside
pencil sketches of the Aquarium,
Prufrockian split claws
wrapped in algae bandages,
that homeless man weakly thumbing
through a pocket bible, the 32
cents wearing sea salt jackets,
and my cold girlfriend pulling on patron
sweaters in an art museum closet.
But it’s all a gimmick.
It’s $22 crab cakes
and paint-splatter-printed
sweatshirts that say New York
or D.C. or *Everything on a Disposable
Kodak Camera.*
Tired of the idea, I threw the page
over the edge, hoping to drown
it in green, but I never heard it hit
the water. I braced myself on a life
ring rack, leaned over,
and watched it settle into a natural
barge of dead leaves and orange peels
while sea foam circled
it like a bed skirt that’s only
noticed for the few seconds spent stripping
down before going to sleep
just to wake up to rain on the Royal Sonesta,
kids racing down the hall, the obligatory
alarm clock,
and the black trumpeter’s groove
four floors down.
Apr 21, 2015
Apr 21, 2015 at 3:29 PM UTC
A far crying blues interrupts the silent night
in the downtown slums,
It pierces again, and again,
Changing pitch and tone
But never changing,
lesser or greater,
In patient wistfulness.
Strangers,
Spraining ankles on broken sidewalks,
Hear the distant outcry of brass
& snap fingers as they saunter
between dim streetlights,
Realizing city’s sorrows are shared
among found sorrowful.
If you follow the calls of dimming nostalgia,
Over rooftops and antennas,
The lone trumpeter is found,
Leaning on a rusted fire escape
Among higher floors of worn apartments
& thick grey clouds of industry
In cathartic meditation
His cheeks puff and blow,
Reminding neighbors
There’s good out in the world
& there’s bad,
But in the oblivious dark of night,
The roar of a trumpet can make peace
within the burnt hearts of cities
To fend both good and bad off
So only memories may linger,
& remain until swollen cheeks tire
for passion of night ceases
unto another day.
Jun 27, 2013
Jun 27, 2013 at 7:46 PM UTC
He perches on his black-crate bandstand,
stationed between the payphone and postbox.
The view from his seat never varies:
a restless audience of briefcases and knees.
He closes his eyes, concentrating
on breath becoming buzz becoming blare,
and he pictures his notes glossing Manhattan’s
thunder-colored walls.
Each tone fills the pavement, square by square
until the sidewalk is a harlequin filmstrip,
colored by notes coaxed from his brass mouth.
Passersby withhold their gaze, because giving a nod
obliges giving a dollar, and no one is inclined
to employ this trumpeter. But he pays no mind;
his own eyes secured until song’s end.
As long as his fingers are jumping,
he doesn’t have to be Gerard Wall–
who lost his wife to cancer and mind to the War;
he can be Louis, Miles, or Pinetop Smith.
When he looks up once again,
sun and spirit have faded,
and he watches the evening embers
drift out of his horn.
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
En los vientres de naciones
todavía huele a tradición:
denso y dulce como un higo.
Hay ecos de bailes
y susurros de dioses
tejiendo pacientemente la cosecha.
Niebla, siempre una niebla,
que desliza por la espalda
de montaña plagada por leyenda,
llevando con sí siseo de culebra,
llanto de cuervo,
y una canción bien embolsada.
Cama fértil pa imaginar,
árboles místicos han criado,
guardando mitos primitivos en sus anillos varicosos.
Hay poco que decir
de la ciencia ni el razón
cuando un trompetista conjura visiones del aguacero.
In the bellies of nations
you can still smell the lore:
dense and sweet as a ripened fig.
There are echoes of dances
and whispers of gods
patiently weaving the harvest.
There is a fog, always a fog,
that slides down the back
of the legend-born mountain
carrying the hiss of a snake,
the wail of a crow,
and a song in its pocket for safe keeping.
Fertile bed for imagination,
mystic trees have sprouted,
holding primal myth in their varicose rings.
There is little to be said
of science or reason
when a trumpeter calls visions from the rain.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Whilst out one cold November day
I watched a young man start to play
Where grass no longer cared to grow
I’d say his years, seventeen or so!
With trumpet pressed against his lips
Then lightest touch of fingertips
A tune which ripped into my soul
The sound of church bells then did toll!
Eleven times they gently wept
Then silence of two minutes crept
No sound was heard for miles away
On this we name Armistice Day!
With that the lad just smiled then went
Into a mist from not known whence
Upon the ground just where he stood
Were poppies red like ruby blood!
Amongst the poppies laid a cross
Made of wood outgrown in moss
Words inscribed said age unknown
This trumpeter can now go home!
© by LynnKaren
Nov 10, 2016
Nov 10, 2016 at 4:43 PM UTC
... he points his toes
like a swan stretching its neck :
smooth calves in fish-nets
to slip into stiletto heels,
performance art of a deceptive nymph
... grace on fine-point tips : his gift - in stiletto heels,
impersonation or personification of feminine beauty
leporine lithely limned
delicate dancer
it is almost as if floating across water
he mimicked once more before
some inner mother's nature took over
façade of savoir face - voila! a star in it's place ...
... It is her face when the night creates a cape
borne with Van Gogh plumes sufficed with self
she paints upon his face : starry nights
sun-flowers, irises covering the welts...
comparably museum worthy, imitation flames
yet like any other canvas
beneathe it could lie disappointment and mistake
drafts of inspiration, cover-ups of cynicism
another creature - some creation unlike him
what was before / the curtain / is unseen, but what if ...
... the truth and process to what presently one sees
or believe
could be / only an amateur attempt:
moments unfelt under layers & layers
of trial and errors / contempt?
would you wipe away Mona Lisa's
smile and devilish wicked secret ?
just to uncover blemished a masterpiece:
an ugly Danish duckling underneath
to prove that swan-lake
a gent
... to evolve from broken eggshells
become a song timely hummed & remembered well
priceless history murals' on passing face
all spoken thoughts performing down the lace
define yourself, how the flight of life from embers
happiness pursuant to tender
Fully free with grace,
it is the power of creativity / the spirit's ability
to overcome adversity
the art of divinity - that is
what he is practicing
This trumpeter
swan in stiletto heels...
Apr 26, 2016
Apr 26, 2016 at 6:21 PM UTC
they said summer would be better
they said they said they said they said
in spring i was born again, just like
they said they said they said they said
I thought after winter I would never feel again, but
his hands and his tongue,
his lips
oh my.
don't let me go, let me rest in your lap
for eternity.
let me hold your cheeks to my heart and be alive.
I love you, I think
I'm not sure
but you may,
you may save me yet
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 2:57 AM UTC
You need to know
Fools live among you,
Fools,
Similar to the destroyed ones
Burned from the skies,
The people I'm speaking of
Dream on,
Living on dreams,
Filthify-ing flesh,
Railing against law,
Railing against law enforcement,
Throwing off authority,
Ridiculing Highest Powers,
Despising Glory,
Expecting no judgment.
Not even Michael,
Michael the Archangel,
Battling the Devil,
Old Lucifer himself,
Potent in infernal might,
Would so presume.
Even Michael,
Trumpeter of God,
Mightiest of angels,
When disputing with the Devil
Over who would take
The body of Moses,
Was wiser than to curse
His infernal Opponent.
Instead,
He stood behind the Robes
Of the Most High,
And importuned,
"The Lord Himself rebuke you."
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 10:02 PM UTC
stand fast, sink not
never of your own
strength, never by
your own legs,
always on His
shoulders.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 8:05 PM UTC