Voicings poems on Hello Poetry

Shashank Virkud Mar 2012

She's more of a poet
'cause she went to school for it,
and she tastes sweet in the morning,

and in the evening,

sunlight filters through her
and lights up that slice of lemon
that I love so much.
I think I'll have a writer -

on the rocks.

Every time I come home,
my room smells like *** in the summer,
and it sounds like the vinyl is still under the needle.
Best album of two thousand and nine.

Best album of all time.

Sand between our toes,
we wrote prose
on a filthy mattress but
roses never grew here.

And they never will.

There was something about us though,
something that had a feverish pulse
behind it. I'd say it was something to
do with the way we have of never putting
a cheap laugh below us. I think it has
something to do with resilience but I'm not sure.
Humming trite voicings of things we'd heard
in the backseat of our fathers' cars, radios on,
you use to tell me to flash the turn signal,
in the black of night, just so you could make sure
we were alive. Dry, but at least alive.
A little beacon to justify us,
and just defy them.

Whiskey,
come over
here and
kiss me.

C'mon
Corinthian,
keep me
company!

Set this manuscript
to music and dance for me!

Asuzx Jan 2022

kunst.

Portrayals of suffering -
Mine and everyone else’s -
What are your cravings for?
May you matter
Existing in this endless instant.

Voicings of my pain,
Do you matter if you save a life?
For a life is but a number.

Representations of my fears -
First aid or pitiful joke?
Sublime art or appalling misery?
Beauty or madness?
Tokens of life or death?
Pointful or pointless?

Does it even matter if it matters?
God doesn't either,
dead or alive,
in dreams or in nightmares,
Unless He makes you laugh.

Does God make you laugh, sometimes?

#suffering #art #misery #perfection #catharsis

Arlene Corwin Feb 2020

What Is Pleasure?

What Is Pleasure?

What is pleasure?
Listening to hubby play a jazz improvisation?
Voicings vested in ten gifted fingers?
Revelling in chords unrivalled?
Food in mouth?
Massage’s touch?

Pleasure, what?
Delight?
Elation?
Gratification?
Simple fun?
Sheer diversion?

To take pleasure is to savour,
As a sample, for example,
Kent’s piano not just pleasure
But a treasure trove of silver;
Coin of worth, worth imitation.

What is pleasure, measure of…?
Anything that makes you smile,
Any force that keeps you mobile.
Any word what ends in -phile.

In opposition to the concept ‘down’,
Such as ‘downheartedness’,
Is feeling blessedness,
A boon your own.

A simple thought in bed last night,
Feeling warm and light,
A bed of roses, height of ease
No pain or seizure. Not inertia but a closure.
This is pleasure
Also.

What Is Pleasure? 2.25.2020 Circling Round Reality; Vaguely About Music II; Arlene Nover Corwin

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Arlene Corwin Apr 2021

I've Only Ever Known Jazz

I’ve Only Ever Known Jazz

Of singers who lay claim to jazz,
I only hear a copied trend:
Styles, arrangements, timbre, sound
Make their populistic rounds.

Then I sing; hear harmonies,
Voicings, bass lines, every chord;
No schmaltz, no crotch, no gestured show,
Knowing I’m a jazz-rich throat,
Each note sung on the spot,
Improvised creatively right from the start.

Do I have a heart? Sure, but
I never will be Bassey - more a Sassy
Jazz-directed to my toes;
God knows how it begins and shows.
My instrument the ears and what they hear,
Voice right or wrong Informed by song.

Monk-like clusters mustered up by choice and taste;
Diatonic or laconic, unexpectedly chromatic:
Product of the 50’s ‘cool’.
Schooled by Ella, Vaughan, Tormé,
Miles, Gillespie, Chet, Monk, Christy,
Frishberg’s, Dorough’s’’s Blossom’s *****,
Mose, Matt Dennis; Hendricks, Hancock,
Hundreds more…great tunes galore:
Some you haven’t heard before!
These my first and opened door.

Whereas some others have their glaze,
I’ve only ever known cool jazz -
Spontaneous, each choice unfazed.
That my music’s cool soul’s razzmatazz.

I’ve Only Ever Known Jazz 4.24.2021 Vaguely About Music II; Arlene Nover Corwin

stranger Sep 2021

i think I might hate parties

Metal teeth
Silence must be so unbothersome to some
Metal teeth clank in their mouths, they laugh and I yawn,
This is just another excuse of life
A little pretentious opportunistic hiccup.
I'm a little under 18 but still better than any wife.
Here, scared I'll get touched so I'll hide behind my dad
Who doesn't notice the place where he's crammed
His trophy daughter and the lifes of too many unfulfilled *****.
5 hours later we're heading home together and I can't stand the voicings of politics over Jeff Buckley.
I know my dad must feel guilty, at least momentarily.
I'd stare at him from my position of the unlikely dame, the stubborn damsel
Tell him through glares that I will stumble into my sneakers and leave unbothered like the silence.
I'm presented and admired or hated while I should be out there living my life out of coherence.
Instead of listening to my own words twisted out of context I should've been on the sidewalk clinking powdered xanax in a jar with no consciousness.
I'd say it's cruel if I wasn't so used to it.
I'd cause a scene if I wasn't scared of being charged criminally.
I'd stop smiling and pretending but that's all I've got in me.
It's alright now, I'm taking my revenge, voices screaming in the car the world must know I'm angry
Though a pity, oh too pretty too be crying.
I've been submerged so long ago the past years have just been a permanent crave for drowning.

— The End —