"vibrato" poems
First it was a tornado,
Then it became a lion,
And one day it'll become a memory,
Floating...
Somewhere...
Burning paper tips at the end of clouds like ember,
And sunsets dipping below horizons,
To conclude that life...
Moves on...
Isn't it beautiful though?
Ripples like an angel's vibrato across waves.
Singing in harmony with perfection.
Silhouettes and dancing shadows,
Stretching beyond vision,
Disappearing under currents,
And making itself known in another hemisphere.
Peaking and rising and sharing its beauty with someone else.
While its absence is mourned.
Until it returns in the morning again.
Bring new hope.
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014 at 10:10 PM UTC
there once was a turtle named Otto
who called all the Mexicans "vato"
but now he's in heaven
choir turtle eleven
with a rather nice little vibrato
May 8, 2012
May 8, 2012 at 2:47 AM UTC
I thought I might be a musician
Mom couldn’t afford my lessons
My eyesight wasn’t great
I couldn’t read notes fast enough
Practicing annoyed the family
I only managed last chair, 2nd violins
But still
I got to play in High School concerts
In shiny dresses with glitter in my hair
However
I haven’t held a violin in years
I loaned mine to a Bluegrass band
The leader died - and it was gone
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
I thought I might become a dancer
But my fingers can not touch the floor
I couldn’t kick much higher than my waist
Choreography was hard for me to learn
I had the stamina if not the skill
My partner wanted someone else
But still
I danced on stage in a college play
And Morris Danced at the Old Globe Theatre
However
I’ve forgotten how to keep the beat
And all the dance floor moves I made
I’m too self conscious now to try
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
I fancied I could be a singer
I knew the words to all the songs
And I could keep the melody in tune
But I had a voice with no vibrato
And the quality was thin
My range was very limited
But still
I sang Blueberry Hill at a talent show
In a black lame’ dress and surprised a few
However
I couldn’t get the hang of harmony
And found I fit best in a choir
My family wouldn’t hear my solos
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
I thought that I was born an actress
I practically got that one right
I had a lead in an Ibsen play
And toured the state with Macbeth
But Hollywood was one big casting couch
And I could see no way around it
But still
I got to be on TV shows
Winning games and merchandise
However
I sold the Firebird Convertible I won
I needed rent money more than a car
And rules allow you only three shows in a lifetime
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
I always thought I was a poet
I started young and never stopped
But family ignored and scoffed
Then I got trapped inside my mirror
And only wrote when all was beak
Somebody said my stuff was dreary
But still
I stumbled on the HP website
And found a group who like the words I write
However
When I read the others’ writes
I realize how limited my skills
And fight the need to run away and hide.
∞
It seems I dabbled in all the arts
Looking for the one that fit me
And finding they all needed alteration
And I never had the proper needle
∞
Still, a moment in the sun
Is better than a lifetime in the shade
I had a taste of everything
Though the banquet was not mine.
ljm
Jul 8, 2017
Jul 8, 2017 at 12:24 PM UTC
In the reserved room built with teenage angst
sat a guitar waiting for a dear friend.
My quick fingers were tentative to touch.
I listened to the chords I brought about—
played a tangle labyrinth. I wish to quit.
Was that a G sharp or a B flat note?
Frustration brews like a furious storm.
I wanted to toss everything away.
This instrument? Not mine. And that is that.
Too embarrassed by my ineptitude.
I loathe guitars! I cannot play them right.
That riff was supposed to be heavy metal.
Not math rock, but it’s enough to settle.
That might change if I use guitar pedals.
Cmon, keep your head high. Let it stay bright.
A friendship with my guitar has begun.
There are bounds I’m still trying not to reach.
And one day, I’ll be good enough to teach
or possess an audience at the beach.
Hey, the guitar is becoming quite fun!
**** metal. I’m a stoner rock artist.
I can play bends, solos, and vibrato.
Look, I even came up with a motto:
to thrive, start with anger in a bottle.
With my advice, you will go the farthest.
My fingers’ pink blush irritates my skin.
Still eager to play. I ignore the sore.
It doesn’t feel like a chore anymore.
This instrument? It’s mine. It led to doors.
It helped me find heaven and become kin.
Jan 8, 2022
Jan 8, 2022 at 4:39 PM UTC
I skip, across a streaming, upon random~laid
flat and comfortable flat flagstone stepping stones,
from poet to poet, color to color, poem to poem,
Auden to Whitman, Schuyler to
myself, a dingaling notion, an errant word,
the here to there, all randoms, yet,
oval chain linked all,
a question posed, an answer unknown,
a reference to an old Italian myth,
and there, and here, a body,
comes to rest,
& also,
comes to rest…
<>
led not by the nose, but the single fingered
tip that guides across a landscape patterned
painting, lost but never a loser, each implants,
each imbibes, and the H&H^ alternatively
rumbles, pounds, vibrato burns erratically,
and the difference between a life in love,
and a life in poetry,
is not a line dividing,
but a path combining,
and the only sign
upon the road,
is never a reddened "stop!"
always just a soft lavender, so tender, inquiring,
requiring, deep thoughts and reckless abandonment,
the only guide inspired when ecstatic adrift in
a season, a sea, any one of nature's designed
unlimited
schemata's of vista creations,
is this, simply stated:
What?
<>
postscript
6:27 Sabbath Sep 27
nyc
after a sunrise glorious, where
the windows eastern facing
make an irresistible irrational
pattern of golden yellow reflecting,
mirrors, and
after reading much,
and so I too, reflect, vista, vista,
what do you see, I see…What?
after reading a poem by James Schuyler,
entitled (yes, we are)
"What"^^
Sep 27, 2025
Sep 27, 2025 at 7:47 AM UTC
My Lucifer, unwitting Muse, dog-eared Vonnegut,
afrobeatnik third eye, howls escaping
from your headphones, wailing about secrets, about infidelity,
about analyzing life until there ain’t nothin’
left. Then you shuffle by in your black and white Adidas,
hair in twists, wearing the striped sweater
of nihilistic intent, quoting the rants of Holden Caulfield
in your blog like you never didn’t know him.
I never asked to know you, to want who I can’t have
when I can’t even love myself. And every fiber
Of my being yearns for reciprocation. What is there
to return? What is there to feel, you meditate on truth,
fallen angel in the parlor of rebellion, blasphemous goodbye,
bright and morning star simpering like crickets in the palms
of daybreak. Your musicality radiates from subway chatter
and overheard profanity down El Camino Real.
I take in your ballad at my post office mailbox,
in the abandoned echoes of daydream monologues.
You’re a philosopher, exploring theory of mind, a cartographer,
mapping the labyrinth of your deepest desires.
Tell me again about desires, demonstrations of divine sadism. Tell me
about human empathy, the animated faces of wordless expression,
the metaphysics of free will, my beginning and my end,
alpha and omega, my fortress in the land of chic.
Blasphemous hustler, let your idealism simmer, your wit, your mojo,
I come to you an amateur, a neophyte, a lowly scab
in the strike against ignorance. Give me my melody, my song,
my one-hit-wonder of all that is cliché and unknown.
But I can’t be the other woman, your girlfriend, your aspiring
Playboy bunny only 10-bucks-a-throw. Your highness-who-yells-
his-ideas-into-the-ears-of-echoes, your every quirk spellbinds me.
Each day I wake to your entourage vibrato.
I am held captive by your brooding stare, empress of liberal
doves. You visit in my dreams when the sky is a force of darkness
viewing light through peepholes, your flaws an aphrodisiac, a love drug,
a fast hit in the basement from the ecstasy of words.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 5:37 AM UTC
I "LIGAW"
"The vibrato of this gypsy dance
Wanes under the midnight sun"
It's blue and amber all at once. In those brief
moments, i imagine a future for us.
A flutter of a smile passes. A deep sigh.
I hear a million tones of "maybe",
watch the moon fade.
The blur stays with me long after.
It covers up a hollow beating and
a thrill of the unsaid and unmet.
Nov 25, 2018
Nov 25, 2018 at 5:55 AM UTC
feed yourself the beautiful dream
one brain wave at a time
so as not to choke on its entirety
or have to suffer anymore.
the entire vibrato you've used
is getting you nowhere, you see.
but soon, you'll be able
to say you're not on the streets to score
*another fix
another mix
of chemical endurance
and obliteration*
step on up, and read the sign
there's nothing left here
just as it was when your father walked
from one end to the other, feverishly.
we're dying out left and right,
but you're sure to make it,
i swear it, i've seen it,
and i'll make it all a reality
*based on dreaming
shaped from cleaning
of the mind
and its impurities.*
Jun 21, 2013
Jun 21, 2013 at 6:20 PM UTC
Inhale, exhale.
Sing to the small dot in your head.
Keep your diaphragm expanded.
Your body is your cello. Use the space for resonance.
Keep your throat dilated.
Small breaths for long notes.
Constant vibrato, but no shaking.
Approach the high notes from on top.
Consistency of technique.
...
Empathize, but not too much.
Reveal, but don't show off.
Control of heart.
What?
Empathize with your own story
Applied to the music you sing.
Reveal the love, the pain, the laughter, the rage, the angst.
But don't let it go wild.
No one likes a show off.
Singing:
All about consistency.
Singing:
All about control.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 3:37 AM UTC
the wind whispers to you in furious ways,
ominous notes, like a dusty violin
stenciling finality into the air.
the percussion
of foot-soldiers trembles the grass.
you have grown, my war-child,
from the days of ****** tea parties
to a diva guerrilla,
terrible and well-rehearsed,
your bulleted libretto close to your chest--
and as trumpets sound in the offing,
the curtain draws back.
AK-47, pizzicato--
gasoline breeds fire, incinerates woodwinds,
the wine of the coloratura soprano
melts into blood.
witch, ***** daughter of gunpowder,
bella contralto, your
deep and tremulous vibrato is a
grenade,
and as death crashes to a crescendo,
mortality in the tin frequency of cymbals--
the only armistice
is annihilation.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 10:27 PM UTC
The A String on her violin snapped
And she gave out a restless sigh
All she wanted was to be in tune
With the the rest of the symphony
But that poor A String insisted
That he couldn't take the stress
To be pulled and stretched daily
Was unbearable for him
If only he could realise the thousands
Of other strings playing in time
The vibrato vibrating into hearts
And resonating into minds
He'd realise without stress
We'd never be able to hear the music
You were like that
You gave up on me because
You couldn't hear the symphony
It's a good thing I've got three more
Strings on this violin
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 11:23 AM UTC
It usually goes a little like this:
Intro, body, bridge, body, body, outro
The body is the most important part
Or at least so we think at first hearing
But personality and words are equal
And your melody is lyrically smooth
As your tempo bounces along my stave
And my vocal chords strum into crescendo
You are my ****** note
Ascending to my neck
Descending to my heart
I yearn to be someone's hand to hold
Someone's ostinato
To transfer into a lower key
If I could be your vibrato
Shake me, shake me, shake me
I love you
I rise up out of my seat
Out of my body
As I make my way towards the outro
And scream:
"YOU DIDN'T KEEP YOUR PROMISE!"
But kiss you, anyway
Because honesty was never your forté
And I love the words that escape your lips
And I love your body
I love you
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 8:21 AM UTC
Sometimes in April
When the rain pours
And makes mud of the earth.
I think of Brenda Fassie’s “Too Late For Mama”
Lingering on my sister’s vibrato
An attempt to forget that,
Once again,
A family member had lent us their back.
My three sisters and I huddled,
Under the night sky,
Singing.
A mild prayer to keep us from shivering.
A ‘let us find the mercy of a couch”
But it rained hard.
We used our limbs as umbrellas.
Laughed loud and sloppily
To hide our shame
Sometimes in April.
I think about the wet ground
How it felt against our feet.
How poverty turned into homeless.
Into needy.
Into “don’t cry, we’ll be okay soon”
Into my mother being a beggar
And us, just open mouths.
Wrestling with the pitiless relatives
Who call us out of our shared last names.
Sometimes
I think
Haven’t we lost enough
Haven’t we known an empty hand
Haven’t we despaired enough.
No shelter to speak of
Just a song to keep us warm
And the rain does not care. (Neither do the people)
It comes.
In April.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 5:38 PM UTC
she spoke to me, on the daffodil sweetness of the pasture
while the grasses, waving, muttered their moist message on the wind
of rot, and renewal,
(but hold your lips, be still for an explosion of intimacy, for a moment)
'Are those a constellation?' she asks.
"The Pleiades."
'You don't know that.'
she doesn't care where the car begins, exhaling gently, to stop
and she commends its forward motion
(the keening love of a sodium light
and forgetfulness in every bone of my body)
I love the thrum of it, below my feet,
murmuring vibrato in the pedals.
They have a Huck Finn cave display at Disneyworld. In Adventure Island, or somewhere, or one of us, deep in the vastness of spines and fingers.
Its fiberglass walls are a portrait of America -
the glean of dew a reflection of that spirit
that drove us over the borders, the rivers, to Oregon,
so we could love under a naked moon,
and renounce our lives of glee, and security
for the bright unsettled plantation of the starless fields.
'You don't know a constellation from a cloud of dandelion seeds.'
But oh, my relentless pioneer love, I do - I know a constellation
is made of stars, and rough determination, and I know that,
love is a today thing, and we are yesterday people
that pain is tomorrow, and we will always be children of the dusk preceding
destined, dear, to find our love receding
Are you prepared, or will the wilderness this time swallow you?
Feb 23, 2010
Feb 23, 2010 at 10:46 AM UTC
She laid there in her galaxy cloak
transcending light and time
transgressive
***** secrets
whispered in his ear
"I just want to supernova"
So he holds back
until she moans out
a celestial symphony
Her o face vibrato
wire tapping hidden energy
Conducting all the right spots
Orchestrating chemistry
enlightened
like lusting galaxies
Descending the electric bodies
Straight from the Goddess' machinery
Where souls go to
come back around together
Until we're all light again
Aug 14, 2013
Aug 14, 2013 at 11:07 PM UTC
our sky is spectrum
there is the peace of
a lake’s night-face
in our presence,
the ratchet of a thousand
orbits encircled-
wholly intersected through the palms.
a collective vibrato.
this unmasked, awesome wave of
silent happenstance
gathers kneading masses
to lay deadly beneath
oaken inscription,
cast about the heavens
in splinters of light.
our shaken, fevered dance
does not separate the halves
we are corpus callosum,
a passing stab embodied,
writhing jazz rhythm
untouched from pre-production.
so slice us into maps.
paste our highwayed bodies
in the grinding gloom
we will be your compass rose
when the pedals
are no longer smooth.
we will grace the dirt
when oceans are no comfort.
the palm-lines of healers
and street urchins
are the same.
child,
this anthem is your name.
if blood runs black,
a frame collapsed,
will we sing over your grave.
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 10:13 AM UTC
I've never felt so cold as when you taught me how to feel-
As each stagnant second pushes
The great pulsating vibrato of life
Further and further into
Yesterday,
Until nothing is left but memories
And stale tap water in a ceramic coffee cup:
The trembling scale by which we measure happiness
That is only felt after it becomes a memory.
Who determines the expiration date
Of emotion?
Your warm pulsating skin
And the hottest month in August
Can only be felt in photo albums
And subtle murmurs only heard
Past 3am.
I never meant to get this caught up
In life-
Breathing in the bitter reality
Of fragmented testimonies
Warning me of what's to come
And fragility of time.
Selfishly I **** the marrow out of
Every fleeting moment,
Scattering the bones across the graveyard of my unrequited mind-
A self proclaimed martyr of suffering
And good intentions.
The confinement of my sordid thoughts,
Condenses reality,
Into the tangible.
Freedom is only felt
In the aftermath of an earthquake-
Crumbled barriers now bear remnants of security.
Is this how it is to feel?
The nerves in my finger tips
Are hot and trembling, as I trace the
Faded outline of something too real
To ever be strained out into the world
Of the living.
Time and time again, I remind myself
Of the ineptitude of anything
That isn't born
Within the sacred hours of
Insomnia.
A distorted image scatters across my empty mind,
Casting shadows on the times where
Nothing mattered beyond the moment.
Life breathes in and out
To the rhythm of the broken record
That we relentlessly cram
Into our vacant hearts,
As if trying to drown out the hollow drone
Of the love
Manufactured in Sunday night sitcoms and materialized on Broadway.
Simple actors, we betray our inner wishes,
And sell them in the form of words
To a greedy audience, yearning to be reassured
That they aren't the only ones who mistake pain for something
Pure.
Time and time again,
I repeat my cynical mantra
Through the motion of my feet upon the ground;
Because, history repeats himself
Until emotion can no longer tread
The freezing waters of existence,
Leaving nothing but a trace of
Something that we foolishly lament with the names of a lover,
And drape with the revealing veil of time-
Mistaken for the truth,
And worshiped at the alter of God.
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 10:14 AM UTC
Dear Gawd......I wanna be Pope..
I never ride backwards
on train or bus,
I never profane,
blaspheme or cuss,
I'm limpid,
riven of diaphanous stuff
never been given,
to a female ****
I'm penitent, contrite –
shriven of sin,
compliant, reliant,
I'm bendy n thin.
not quite castrato,
gives good vibrato
to choirboys mullato
with bellybutton fluff.
Nov 11, 2011
Nov 11, 2011 at 2:19 PM UTC
some of us walk insistently,
instinctively, and instantly to
and upon the edged path,
this physical nexus & abstract mental locus,
a cliffside enticing rock strewn trail,
drawn of men, by men, for men
(yes, men are people too, still)
enthralling views,
down to the riverside,
where eyes intuit the
beauteous aroma of
precious precocious
precarious precipices
and the near-stench of
mortality
amidst
wafting scents of inane undesirable need,
hints of destruction, or,
alternating eager relief,
like a ****** infused, instant attractiveness,
making weakness in the knees, all too real,
trembling with a delicious accented edge of
a fresh, familiar scent, fresh baked bread,
an all enveloping consumption need now!
to
crave what we fear,
to fear what we crave
our cravings are craven,
this twisted sense, annuls
our common sensibility, yet,
titillates our pleasured imagined relief,
releases, our unsated, even better,
our insatiable curiosity to tremble,
an entire body enjoined by vibrato~
enticing tremulations, shaken and stirred,
this danger choice releases something primordial,
escape? a reckless wrecking so deeply designed,
it has its very own designation…death wish
multitudes of easy choices afforded my senses,
and by accident, all mine chosen, all nearby,
I travel the esplanade près de the East River,
where even if calm is the sole visiblilty,
undercurrents and the unpredictable passage
of container wakes and the larger freighters
will hand you down, so easy, to become parcel
to a littered river bottom of centuries’ artifacts
but even more tempting, the balcony,
a hop, skip and a jump unlocked,
mere ten steps, no need for a running start
why it’s the “height of convenience,”
he ruefully winces, and not even any
TSA lines or inconveniencing “conveniences”
Why this calamity seems so desperately desirable,
Why this unabrogated feat so featured, nay, even
feted in our hot? cold? bloodstream
“Why just men?
*I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.*”
Dec 5, 2023
Dec 5, 2023 at 5:42 PM UTC
Strong vibrato
Mezzopiano
Your crescendo has me
Wavered
A rabbit in your headlights
Staccato
Fixated on vinyl love
(Asphyxiated)
So lucid your lips
Treble clef
Tremble clef
Tenor rumbles
Eyes/river overflow
Incessant whine
Of heartbeat(bass)
Languid pretty song.
Mar 24, 2013
Mar 24, 2013 at 11:26 PM UTC
“Is this what we’ll be like in twenty years?”
A hint of sarcastic laughter sneaks through
your voice as you mock our Saturday night
of quiet conversation
over brimming cups of tea.
The secondhand table wobbles a little,
and the spots that last year’s tenants left
on the carpet match the breakfast
still stuck to the tablecloth
(at least there’s now a tablecloth).
The dishwasher hums between discussions
of the fall of man and the filioque,
a feather of steam curling up around
your face, like sweet sticky incense prayed up to heaven
on the tail of a tenor’s vibrato.
“I hope so.”
Jan 17, 2012
Jan 17, 2012 at 6:07 PM UTC
Huff, puff, smooth bravado,
This instrument that I play,
Whisks me away into smokey,
Desolate lounges,
Filled with women in black and red dresses,
Who would otherwise look away,
If not for my silky, suave vibrato.
Ooh, how I can carry a tune,
My fingers dance on the keys,
Like raindrops on a windowsill,
The neon lights at the door,
Buzzing outside in the cold.
The only thing warming up,
This cold little soul,
Is a finger of rye,
Adjacent to the ashtray,
That holds my neglected cigarette.
She watches, She listens,
My face turns purple,
As I pour my heart out on stage,
Out in the open in this vacant place,
With only the few of us around.
Nov 7, 2023
Nov 7, 2023 at 9:54 PM UTC
"Oh, murmur, murmur me again to peace!"
(from the libretto of Handel's Semele -
opera.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/semele.htm)
think of your ears as an
ever alert, high pitched,
sensory tuning fork,
an aural radar, searching for that
acute, oblique,
perforating and poking phrase,
that lost airplane of solace
buried and too well hid
in the vastness of
empty, characterless searchable seas
that rarely yield up their
comforting finery
when discovered, tripped upon,
instant recognition pleads
"write me down,
write me up,
delve me,
determine me,
make me more!"
t'is a thrumming vibrato
interfering with mind,
that phrase, that phrase, that phrase
"Oh, murmur, murmur me again to peace!"
content coursing through the eyes,
piercing veils of hum drum dumbing down,
a life spying drone eliciting excitedly
a high value target,
an unexpected mission,
camouflaged amidst the
chit chat droning of the
choking ordinary and commonplace
*murmur me, with soft downy charms,
these words discovered
recoursed and intended well to
pointedly offset and contradict
their very own
tumultuous discovery uncovering,
tear tongue me
with calming, lapping word wages,
hymns harmonious and fine homilies,
a call, a request,
a bequest
to sedate my shrill life,
You
murmur me again to peace*
even the words
be prepared to sacrifice, surrender,
but promise me that
the Justice of
-just-
thy tone,
thy inflections,
will gentle
the infecting turbulence
of being a plain, tried and trialed human
let me not
catalogue the onerous,
the burdening barbell weights,
we carry for no purpose
Give us
our daily bread of a singular
phrase~prayer~poem,
our verbal bond, modest sequest,
honey oatmeal, cut up strawberried
jewel,
give it, me this day,
my daily soothing
"Oh, murmur, murmur me again to peace!"
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 8:24 AM UTC
White hot Flash
Drums of Vibrato
Echo down the Spine
Cold and Sticky
In the Chest
Pulling an Aching
Mind down to
Recollections of Oleander
And Saltwater-
Bloodshot belladonna Eyes
Poppy seed Vision
A loose-lipped Smile
Blurred hands
Violet fingertips
Pale white Translucent
Blue veins dark Stained
Iced concrete and Jasmine
Be still my Soul
Long enough
To Comprehend
The Nymphet Tragedy
Of timid Thorns
And soft strums on Steel Strings
Written longways
Read sideways
Neglected underneath
Rocky steps
Buried deep
In the salted Soil
And mossy Tress
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 3:26 PM UTC
Besame, quiereme, porque soy debil. For I am weak.
Abrazame fuerte por favor, porque soy cansado, Tired.
Cantarme, en suave vibrato,
porque siento convertirse a parado. Still.
Y quedate conmigo... Stay with me...
Hasta que muera con mi corazon fuera. Until I die with my heart outside.
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 11:37 PM UTC