not sure how many words

[CharleyH]

Vivid and beautiful, Angeline.

 

[Angeline]

Chitara

He never kept her so well groomed:
the strings sprung off keys like whiskers
sprouting from the neck, pick tucked in
that first fret, the whole contraption

stuck in a corner near some books
Bellow's Hertzog, San Francisco
Blues and there she'd sit a silent
muse waiting for his odd fancy

to spy her gleaming in the Sun
motes and pull her to his middle
just to slide big hands soft over
the curves and pluck at her, rub

her and sing with her, their timbre
soothing harmony or raucous
rough-edged plea but always
wondrous songs curious wanders

through Sequoias deep arroyos,
the rivers that twist like the veins
of Earth, hands in the dirt big eyes
on the sky on mother and grand

father, songs of resignation
and gratitude, songs for Kaddish
beatitudes, sutras for joy
blue notes prayed, sung to Heaven's gates.

But now the old girl must be gone
off to the next generation
I'll no doubt have my usual
trepidation but I know where

she belongs.

 

[champagne1982]

Chitara
<snip>
But now the old girl must be gone
off to the next generation
I'll no doubt have my usual
trepidation but I know where

she belongs.

glos:

But now the old girl must be gone
to give her song to voices curing
into an echo of a father's melody
with lyrics still waiting for birth.

She glows, eager for a riff felt
and so to the next generation
that strums a different beat,
one of vital lives, she goes.

Her voice is still in memory but soon
she'll sing anew, all the old tunes.
I'll no doubt have my usual
favourites, but now they'll burst

from a younger throat whose life
is just beginning and that one's
ready to explore far horizons without
trepidation. But I know where

she has been before and I'm jealous.
Her warmth will be with him.
It's correct, I understand that now
she belongs.

 

[Angeline]

glos:

But now the old girl must be gone
to give her song to voices curing
into an echo of a father's melody
with lyrics still waiting for birth.

She glows, eager for a riff felt
and so to the next generation
that strums a different beat,
one of vital lives, she goes.

Her voice is still in memory but soon
she'll sing anew, all the old tunes.
I'll no doubt have my usual
favourites, but now they'll burst

from a younger throat whose life
is just beginning and that one's
ready to explore far horizons without
trepidation. But I know where

she has been before and I'm jealous.
Her warmth will be with him.
It's correct, I understand that now
she belongs.

Ah a glosa you little minx. Very nice.

 

[Angeline]

Too Much Time Ghazal

I am shattered and blessed at the same time
shadoobie shattered this ain't no game time.

I feel empty like a shell, a shell game
like Nine Mile Canyon got no aim time.

I have great karma: I'm meant to survive
so I'm mad and I can't even blame time.

Will I get over you? No can do, my boo
boo hoo pain this rage and shame time.

Look at me inching along like a snail
since my blue who knows became time.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Reach Exceeds Grasp

No handle, no grip
Can't grasp or clasp
Can't lay a hand or
Put my finger on
How you touch me
Lightest caress
Hardest thrust
You are animal
Vegetable
Mineral
Feeding and sustaining
Needs and craving
I cannot name
Only savor
One lick
One bite
At a time
As you rend me
Bit by bit
Toes to throat
And I
Torn asunder
Am left gurgling
Burbling
Cursing a prayer
Of redemption
Salvation
Ascension
Soaring
Expanding
Until I collapse
In upon myself
Pulling you deep
Within my darkness
You and I
Body and mind
Disappearing
Leaving only
The space between
That appears as nothing
But draws me in
Reaching for that which
I cannot grasp

 

[Angeline]

Terzanelle on Mourning

If I have to cry, I'll cry--
mourning is easy enough.
I'll just push myself to try

keep trying, survive this leaden scruff
I have become, river deep bone dry.
Mourning is easy enough

if I warn myself not to lie
anymore, denial being tricky stuff.
I have become river deep, bone dry

as a result but things are tough
in the wind and now I'm floating
anymore, denial being tricky stuff

that sticks--a miraculous coating
until it rains away to leave me bare
in the wind. And now I'm floating

a single feather on the air.
If I have to cry, I'll cry
until it rains away to leave me bare.
I'll just push myself to try.

 

[butters]

damn, angie... just damn

you've made windchimes of the bare bones of your soul

 

[Tsotha]

That presses down hard on my chest, forces to hold breath. What butters said, and a hug.

 

[Angeline]

damn, angie... just damn

you've made windchimes of the bare bones of your soul

That presses down hard on my chest, forces to hold breath. What butters said, and a hug.

Thank you both. I hope I'm not being too much of a downer writing this stuff here. It is helping to get these poems out of me and onto the virtual page.

 

[butters]

Thank you both. I hope I'm not being too much of a downer writing this stuff here. It is helping to get these poems out of me and onto the virtual page.

not at all - it's beautifully heartbeaking stuff.

sharing this, you're giving use a deeper insight into EE than we would have had through reading his writing alone. just let it come, angie

hang in it there, girl

 

[HarryHill]

Thank you both. I hope I'm not being too much of a downer writing this stuff here. It is helping to get these poems out of me and onto the virtual page.

I haven't post a comment, not wanting to intrude on your grief, the things you have written here since... oh my, Angie

 

[Angeline]

not at all - it's beautifully heartbeaking stuff.

sharing this, you're giving use a deeper insight into EE than we would have had through reading his writing alone. just let it come, angie

hang in it there, girl

I haven't post a comment, not wanting to intrude on your grief, the things you have written here since... oh my, Angie

I'm getting a little better every day.

 

[Trixareforkids]

not at all - it's beautifully heartbeaking stuff.

sharing this, you're giving use a deeper insight into EE than we would have had through reading his writing alone. just let it come, angie

hang in it there, girl

I second this! The grief is heartbreaking but in a very beautiful way.

Let it come and we'll gladly share it

 

[Angeline]

I second this! The grief is heartbreaking but in a very beautiful way.

Let it come and we'll gladly share it

Thank you dear girl. It is true that my heart is broken, but I am working on mending it. And I feel EE with me, kicking my butt and saying "get going." Cause I know he would.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I haven't post a comment, not wanting to intrude on your grief, the things you have written here since... oh my, Angie

This.

 

[Angeline]

Round Midnight

Since his middle name is Sphere
you expect the sound to be round
but instead it's angular and precise.

It veers toward the edge of a note
to discover its dissonant bones. It
sheds light in unexpected corners

so you know what isn't dark. Sphere
wrote Round Midnight which might
mean he was alone at the piano

round midnight fitting those combos,
those odd permutations of harmony
and discord into patterns of heart

aching beauty or maybe it was just
midnight somewhere and the moon,
pregnant and misterioso, was round.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKayR1oqC7w

 

[champagne1982]

Spanked Up

Experiencing pain like this reminds
that it's supposed to hurt
before it gets better, like spankings
on over-the-knee bottoms
"This is gonna hurt me, more
than it hurts you!" Liar.
Oh wait. Psychic pain leaves
your soul screaming in silent
agony like the sting of slaps
makes a misbehaving child
scream in outrage. It does hurt
you more. It's ok. It's gonna
get better, so I'm told, anyway.

 

[Angeline]

I am still
in love with you and Billie
was wrong love is not
like a faucet at least not
the turning off part or maybe
this was more Niagara Falls

a deluge enough for a world
of tears or maybe a fine
mist that cools the eyes
and bends into rainbows.

Now you're pure
love, you're everywhere
that is good but dammit
I wish you were just here
again.

 

[Angeline]

This is my fairy tale
but we're not under a tree
with the breeze lifting
pages.

This is my mythology
but we ain't wandering
o'er misty legend lands
rainbows a'glimmer.

We're at the bar
in a faceless uptown,
a top down ride
park on a side street
and yes the trees near
the door are listening
intently.

Inside is chill and dim.
The sweetest little combo
crowds the stage the music
tickles toes and beats
the heart, bass man
right on the edge,
elbow this close
to a cymbal.

The human hum rolls on.
It's a current: voices pick up,
glasses knock back, you hear
that ice jingle jangle and smoke
crawls over it like flies.

There are no beanstalks
here. The jazzers are giants,
maybe even gods. Piano
man plays fleet like Hermes,
sailing the keys and that's gotta
be Zeus, that long-headed man
who bashes the bebop
forward.

It's controlled chaos,
Apollo in the blue spot
blows When the Sun Sets
Down South and flips
that last note into the smoke
just so the moan hurts
just right. But the crowd
only half listens
because who, besides me, cares
about gods anymore,
anyway?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfJ81ysuq_s

 

[todski28]

This is my fairy tale
but we're not under a tree
with the breeze lifting
pages.

This is my mythology
but we ain't wandering
o'er misty legend lands
rainbows a'glimmer.

We're at the bar
in a faceless uptown.

The air is chill the light dim
and the sweetest little combo
crowds the stage, bass man
right on the edge elbow
this close to a cymbal.

The hum of our human hive
shoots through the room
like a current: voices pick up,
glasses set down, ice clinks
and smoke crawls over it all.

There are no beanstalks--
the jazzmen are the giants,
maybe even gods, with Piano
man playing like Hermes, fleet
yet earth-bound and raw
and that's gotta be Zeus
bashing the bebop forward.
It's controlled chaos,

Apollo in the blue spot
blowin When the Sun Sets
Down South and flipping
that last note into the smoke
just so and the moan hurts
just right but the crowd only
half listens because who,
besides me, cares about gods
anymore, anyway?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfJ81ysuq_s

just wow first time here in a couple of days and just wow.

Your words hurt and ache and resonate.

 

[Angeline]

just wow first time here in a couple of days and just wow.

Your words hurt and ache and resonate.

Thanks tods (I think--at least the resonating didn't hurt, right?). I think your prose poem/flash fiction/etc., in the passion thread is impressive, really refined work line by line.

 

[Angeline]

One Window

One window beckons the world
to light my dark corners.

One window is harmless,
shows me straight through
to the soul though I'm still
on the other side.

One window is sufficient.

The Sun pours butter here
and slants the day over
my skin, shows my face
when it's safe to smile.

Understand: I'm a stranger
in my own land. Change shifts

under my feet, the landscape tilts
and I get dizzy. I sway
like a sea flower with a sutra
of intention in my heart,
but inchoate longing is a siren,
beautiful and deadly to navigate.

I'm bleeding

even as the ocean
sings roll on waves, roll on
emerald foam. Let me crash
on the strand to mourn
these shards and shells that echo
in the wake.

Though it is no mirror,
I ask the brittle pane
if it remembers faces
hidden from the crowd,
faces bright or fading,
faintly there or gone
altogether, yet drawn
in the lines around
my eyes.

How can emptiness gather
still as the deepest lake, cupped
and cherished in my palm?

Please

when you reach heaven,
speak for every flower crushed.

Just don't look away. Rain
those words on this refuge
of glass.

 

[Angeline]

Wanting Snow

1. Heavy Sky

When you want snow
you wait for gray, anticipate
those harbinger clouds
will mass and loom.
You expect that electric
charge to rattle the air stinging
tiny bolts off doorknob
and carpet

until

*
one flake

and then another

**
and still more

***

fall

and group and fill the air

****

down

****

down

until they grace the ground
with an illusion of purity,

down

until they punctuate branches
with messages from the wind.

2. Snowscape

Step outside.

Ice imitates art, thin lines cross
narrow surfaces to arabesque webs
and patterns like delicate pen-and-ink
illustrations or a coda on the flight
of birds.

White swaths curve to streetlamps,
iridescent, impersonating a blanket
of diamonds that shift with the light

and late at night when shadows
are carved and cut in precise
contrasts, the ghost of Alfred Steiglitz
haunts the avenues, camera in hand,
stalking the relentless ice.

All the motion of architecture
is rearranged. The silence
in a map of footsteps
speaks louder than the clang
of skyscrapers.

3. Crunchy Boots

Early morning is best
for snow walking. Dawn
ushers off the solitude
and the morning crunches
and cracks and plops
mini avalanches as I pass
by in a steady hiss of breath
puffing pockets of air
through a woolen scarf.

Later I’ll be a face
in a window, swaddled
in hot chocolate
and Segovia.

 

[Angeline]

When I speak
in my poet voice I shall pronounce
with precision. My modulation may
be strange: I'll emphasize the wrong
word as if my enjamb button
is bass ackwards and if you don't
know any better you'll think
I'm being meaningful or provocative
or worse yet, poetic. If you think
I sound poetic be assured that I am
full of shit.