not sure how many words
- Thread starter eagleyez
- Start date
pensivepoet
Love dangerously
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I absolutely loved one window, ange
Felt many things along the way
The finish rocked.
Did you steal the last one from me? Sounds like me
Take care, snows a comin soon
Felt many things along the way
The finish rocked.
Did you steal the last one from me? Sounds like me
Take care, snows a comin soon
Angeline
Poet Chick
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- Mar 11, 2002
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- 27,194
reading, and reading, and reading
Thank you. I originally wrote One Window around 2002 sometime but gave it an overhaul recently. I was concerned that it might be too over the top sentimental, but that's not the reaction I've been getting to it so I'm happy about that.
Also I laugh at the snow we get where I live now. eagleyez and I moved here from Maine. In fact the first time he read my "Wanting Snow" poem, he said I'd be getting over that real soon. Boy was he right!
Angeline
Poet Chick
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Birdsong
Those were India ink days,
precisely dark, no wide sky
swept by. Hours were days
on a green screen alpha-
numeric in fine tiny print.
Count the minutes my dear,
such an insectile tick
and clock.
We spooled down the gray
rain falling steady and listless,
a downpour of ennui, not enough
gumption to pelt or splash,
so we threw away the key
to that bleak house. We invited in
the old friends: Milton Miller
Joyce and Jack began to bubble
up. That was how the joy
came back. Words laughed
at their absurd constructs
and jazz began to play. Big
Easy blew her cornet,
rolled a muddy second line
past the kitchen and honey
all we knew was chicken
in the pot.
You'd gesture, scratch your knee,
spin stories. We'd let poems fall
into our mouths. We'd make
a family of voices. Of course
you said it's the music.
I say art was the heart
of that house, woven
in its warp and weft almost
an invisible web like a home
for the cliffhanger spider
who lived on the ceiling.
Birdsong played in a minor
key and words traveled light
in spaces between the sounds.
Those were India ink days,
precisely dark, no wide sky
swept by. Hours were days
on a green screen alpha-
numeric in fine tiny print.
Count the minutes my dear,
such an insectile tick
and clock.
We spooled down the gray
rain falling steady and listless,
a downpour of ennui, not enough
gumption to pelt or splash,
so we threw away the key
to that bleak house. We invited in
the old friends: Milton Miller
Joyce and Jack began to bubble
up. That was how the joy
came back. Words laughed
at their absurd constructs
and jazz began to play. Big
Easy blew her cornet,
rolled a muddy second line
past the kitchen and honey
all we knew was chicken
in the pot.
You'd gesture, scratch your knee,
spin stories. We'd let poems fall
into our mouths. We'd make
a family of voices. Of course
you said it's the music.
I say art was the heart
of that house, woven
in its warp and weft almost
an invisible web like a home
for the cliffhanger spider
who lived on the ceiling.
Birdsong played in a minor
key and words traveled light
in spaces between the sounds.
HarryHill
Hairy fucker
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Angeline
Poet Chick
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- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,194
pensivepoet
Love dangerously
- Joined
- May 21, 2014
- Posts
- 7,667
Loved that ange
Reminded me of one of my fave kate wolf songs, bout sittin at the kitchen table, making music and poems, then that reminded me of across the great divide~my kate fave, that i'm reaching for now.
So, thanks!
Reminded me of one of my fave kate wolf songs, bout sittin at the kitchen table, making music and poems, then that reminded me of across the great divide~my kate fave, that i'm reaching for now.
So, thanks!
Angeline
Poet Chick
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Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
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Isn't this just
delightful exhibition?
I'm performing en pointe,
everything riding on toes
as (simultaneously) I strip
off my clothes but with purpose
and sincerity, mainly
in the name of my obsession:
necessity of art
and my confession.
Don't ask who I am.
Does it matter anyway?
You'd slow down for a wreck,
a crazy raving in in the street.
No disrespect.
It's our humanity that pulls
you in to watch me dance
or bleed: wretched toes
strained and cramping even
as the veils are dropping,
even as the dance proceeds,
pleading flawlessly.
When I've ended
my confession, bare
and fallen, stained and yet
illuminated (though not
relieved of pain), what
of me remains beside
the naked wounds?
It's enough to stand
tremulous and light,
but strong, able
to take a hand, be led
from this bright stage.
delightful exhibition?
I'm performing en pointe,
everything riding on toes
as (simultaneously) I strip
off my clothes but with purpose
and sincerity, mainly
in the name of my obsession:
necessity of art
and my confession.
Don't ask who I am.
Does it matter anyway?
You'd slow down for a wreck,
a crazy raving in in the street.
No disrespect.
It's our humanity that pulls
you in to watch me dance
or bleed: wretched toes
strained and cramping even
as the veils are dropping,
even as the dance proceeds,
pleading flawlessly.
When I've ended
my confession, bare
and fallen, stained and yet
illuminated (though not
relieved of pain), what
of me remains beside
the naked wounds?
It's enough to stand
tremulous and light,
but strong, able
to take a hand, be led
from this bright stage.
Last edited:
pensivepoet
Love dangerously
- Joined
- May 21, 2014
- Posts
- 7,667
And what good would such a dance be on a remote isle?
Even train wrecks need to be seen, heard. The beauty discovered in the chaos.
(i love the word tremulous)
Even train wrecks need to be seen, heard. The beauty discovered in the chaos.
(i love the word tremulous)
Angeline
Poet Chick
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- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,194
That's an optimistic way of seeing it. I like that.
And yeah "tremulous" is a good word. Tremulous and I have been spending some time together, so I knew she was right for that line.
Angeline
Poet Chick
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It doesn't matter
if it's not your voice
but my imagination.
I specialize in the wild
mouse ride, that funhouse
of racing thought that screams
to a heart stopping halt
then hauls back
for another thrill.
Any
way I know what
you'd say and you,
assuming you are,
would or do know
my response. That
was the beauty part,
having achieved
no need to talk, just
eyes and hands, a subtle
shift of an arm or knee
or nothing more than air
charged with our
knowing.
The sky has been
a slate for days and
that isn't relevant
except I've noticed
it matches the grit,
the all that you remain,
in a small enough box
that last night slept
in your spot.
if it's not your voice
but my imagination.
I specialize in the wild
mouse ride, that funhouse
of racing thought that screams
to a heart stopping halt
then hauls back
for another thrill.
Any
way I know what
you'd say and you,
assuming you are,
would or do know
my response. That
was the beauty part,
having achieved
no need to talk, just
eyes and hands, a subtle
shift of an arm or knee
or nothing more than air
charged with our
knowing.
The sky has been
a slate for days and
that isn't relevant
except I've noticed
it matches the grit,
the all that you remain,
in a small enough box
that last night slept
in your spot.
Last edited:
champagne1982
Dangerous Liaison
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2002
- Posts
- 7,671
I first engaged with poems
of unsure words and tentative
overtures that soon broke
through and let me understand
that happiness is possible
even if you're not sure
how many words it will take
to cement a friendship
and to find that now this
absence can be felt across
more than two thousand miles
and is only brought home
again when I learn
that I'm not sure how
many tears it takes to shed
the sorrow enough to smile
and comfort a wife bereaved
when she feels such beautiful
pain and allows me to share
this hurt in my own poor way.
of unsure words and tentative
overtures that soon broke
through and let me understand
that happiness is possible
even if you're not sure
how many words it will take
to cement a friendship
and to find that now this
absence can be felt across
more than two thousand miles
and is only brought home
again when I learn
that I'm not sure how
many tears it takes to shed
the sorrow enough to smile
and comfort a wife bereaved
when she feels such beautiful
pain and allows me to share
this hurt in my own poor way.
champagne1982
Dangerous Liaison
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2002
- Posts
- 7,671
That's not maudlin todski, that's empathy. I thank you for sharing a portion of this pain since it is lessened each time someone else picks up part of the load.
Angeline
Poet Chick
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- Mar 11, 2002
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- 27,194
Dexter Suite: Part 2
Let's face the music and dance,
having swung past another war,
time blowed and gone like a leaf
on a breeze, progression, erosion,
eternal return. The breath, the wind
the voice, these giant steps
like craters where former giants
once stood, where the wind blows
change, where Lady shrinks,
diminuendo. Bean and Prez
recede but the music flows
on like steam in a Harlem air
shaft, steady on.
This is America 1962:
the scene opens on white
and square and God help
those who don't fit there.
God help the man with a horn
and a dream spiked in his arm.
He's blue in the soul, gut weary
blue of bars and jail, the world
of lamentation measured
in swooping sorrows,
holding on and longing
for a night in Tunisia, Paris,
Copenhagen-- anywhere
a man can be a man,
a song can have a voice.
If eyes could see
beyond the skin beyond
the cloaks of difference,
and know we are not
strangers in the bones
or the voice and only
perceive what we think
must be reality, but listen
to the song, spin along
a rapid little beat or suspend
floating on the slow breath
of a ballad and know:
the man behind the horn
is a man, not a cipher
but a man, real in the skin
and real in the world.
Backstage in Copenhagen
at the Jazzhus Montmartre,
Society Red runs scales
and swings into an easy stride,
a loose-limbed jivey
boperation, left hand voicing
blue honks and wails.
It's an old story
my mama done told me.
Let's face the music and dance,
having swung past another war,
time blowed and gone like a leaf
on a breeze, progression, erosion,
eternal return. The breath, the wind
the voice, these giant steps
like craters where former giants
once stood, where the wind blows
change, where Lady shrinks,
diminuendo. Bean and Prez
recede but the music flows
on like steam in a Harlem air
shaft, steady on.
This is America 1962:
the scene opens on white
and square and God help
those who don't fit there.
God help the man with a horn
and a dream spiked in his arm.
He's blue in the soul, gut weary
blue of bars and jail, the world
of lamentation measured
in swooping sorrows,
holding on and longing
for a night in Tunisia, Paris,
Copenhagen-- anywhere
a man can be a man,
a song can have a voice.
If eyes could see
beyond the skin beyond
the cloaks of difference,
and know we are not
strangers in the bones
or the voice and only
perceive what we think
must be reality, but listen
to the song, spin along
a rapid little beat or suspend
floating on the slow breath
of a ballad and know:
the man behind the horn
is a man, not a cipher
but a man, real in the skin
and real in the world.
Backstage in Copenhagen
at the Jazzhus Montmartre,
Society Red runs scales
and swings into an easy stride,
a loose-limbed jivey
boperation, left hand voicing
blue honks and wails.
It's an old story
my mama done told me.
Holy shit Angeline, well written, (slow clap)
The beat, the rhythm, the intermingle of jazz ledgends, the proverbial passing of the horn, the movement from place to place, social commentary on racism, intermingled with a taste of smoke clicking fingers and just..... Well you know you wrote it
The beat, the rhythm, the intermingle of jazz ledgends, the proverbial passing of the horn, the movement from place to place, social commentary on racism, intermingled with a taste of smoke clicking fingers and just..... Well you know you wrote it
Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,194
Holy shit Angeline, well written, (slow clap)
The beat, the rhythm, the intermingle of jazz ledgends, the proverbial passing of the horn, the movement from place to place, social commentary on racism, intermingled with a taste of smoke clicking fingers and just..... Well you know you wrote it
Hey Tods. Thanks.
There is a part one and I'm currently thinking about part three, so it's very much a work in progress. Heaven knows what'll ever happen with it, but I'm having a great time putting it together. Well if you call struggling over poems a "great time"...
Hey Tods. Thanks.
There is a part one and I'm currently thinking about part three, so it's very much a work in progress. Heaven knows what'll ever happen with it, but I'm having a great time putting it together. Well if you call struggling over poems a "great time"...
See how we all play the tortured artist card at times when secretly words hold some kind of puzzled salvation that is addictive,
I would be happy to read all of them, I didn't even know jazz existed till I started writing here so thank you for the introduction to a simple pleasure.
Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,194
Just playing around to see how they fit together...
Dexter Suite
I.
Have you heard that long-headed
man curved on the night who swings
on the moon smooths it out slow,
paints it blue with gold a long flash
that falls and flutters down and down
town baby the city rolls we finger
snap and pat our feet to hurry
midnight hurry dreamland warm--
Daddy plays the horn.
At the Royal Roost
a chicken shack on Broadway
and 47th ivey-divey down
town, not The Street, but close
enough for jazz and otherwise
known as the Metropolitan Bopera
House.
Duke tilts an ironic smile
Dizzy gapes and jives. The First
Lady of Song is coiffed in a halo
of fur, eyes closed somewhere
there's heaven (how faint the tune).
The hi-hat shimmers, the spot
shrinks and here's Dex
behatted, a rumpled punctuation,
a horn, a plume of smoke:
a tone poem. New York, 1948.
II.
Let's face the music and dance,
having swung past another war,
time blowed and gone like a leaf
on a breeze, progression, erosion,
eternal return. The breath, the wind
the voice, these giant steps
like craters where former giants
once stood, where the wind blows
change, where Lady shrinks,
diminuendo. Bean and Prez
recede but the music flows
on like steam in a Harlem air
shaft, steady on.
This is America 1962:
the scene opens on white
and square and God help
those who don't fit there.
God help the man with a horn
and a dream spiked in his arm.
He's blue in the soul, gut weary
blue of bars and jail, the world
of lamentation measured
in swooping sorrows,
holding on and longing
for a night in Tunisia, Paris,
Copenhagen-- anywhere
a man can be a man,
a song can have a voice.
If eyes could see
beyond the skin beyond
the cloaks of difference,
and know we are not
strangers in the bones
or the voice and only
perceive what we think
must be reality, but listen
to the song, spin along
a rapid little beat or suspend
floating on the slow breath
of a ballad and know:
the man behind the horn
is a man, not a cipher
but a man, real in the skin
and real in the world.
Backstage in Copenhagen
at the Jazzhus Montmartre,
Society Red runs scales
and swings into an easy stride,
a loose-limbed jivey
boperation, left hand voicing
blue honks and wails.
It's an old story
my mama done told me.
Dexter Suite
I.
Have you heard that long-headed
man curved on the night who swings
on the moon smooths it out slow,
paints it blue with gold a long flash
that falls and flutters down and down
town baby the city rolls we finger
snap and pat our feet to hurry
midnight hurry dreamland warm--
Daddy plays the horn.
At the Royal Roost
a chicken shack on Broadway
and 47th ivey-divey down
town, not The Street, but close
enough for jazz and otherwise
known as the Metropolitan Bopera
House.
Duke tilts an ironic smile
Dizzy gapes and jives. The First
Lady of Song is coiffed in a halo
of fur, eyes closed somewhere
there's heaven (how faint the tune).
The hi-hat shimmers, the spot
shrinks and here's Dex
behatted, a rumpled punctuation,
a horn, a plume of smoke:
a tone poem. New York, 1948.
II.
Let's face the music and dance,
having swung past another war,
time blowed and gone like a leaf
on a breeze, progression, erosion,
eternal return. The breath, the wind
the voice, these giant steps
like craters where former giants
once stood, where the wind blows
change, where Lady shrinks,
diminuendo. Bean and Prez
recede but the music flows
on like steam in a Harlem air
shaft, steady on.
This is America 1962:
the scene opens on white
and square and God help
those who don't fit there.
God help the man with a horn
and a dream spiked in his arm.
He's blue in the soul, gut weary
blue of bars and jail, the world
of lamentation measured
in swooping sorrows,
holding on and longing
for a night in Tunisia, Paris,
Copenhagen-- anywhere
a man can be a man,
a song can have a voice.
If eyes could see
beyond the skin beyond
the cloaks of difference,
and know we are not
strangers in the bones
or the voice and only
perceive what we think
must be reality, but listen
to the song, spin along
a rapid little beat or suspend
floating on the slow breath
of a ballad and know:
the man behind the horn
is a man, not a cipher
but a man, real in the skin
and real in the world.
Backstage in Copenhagen
at the Jazzhus Montmartre,
Society Red runs scales
and swings into an easy stride,
a loose-limbed jivey
boperation, left hand voicing
blue honks and wails.
It's an old story
my mama done told me.
Angeline
Poet Chick
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Posts
- 27,194
American Lullaby
Make your wish, say goodbye to your wretched ego: drift into a dream.
Send the wish skimming along the night river, moonlit and silvery.
Spin a dreamcatcher spangled and intricate, a spiderweb of hope.
Gather chamomile, hops and lavender, lemongrass. Burn nag champa.
Listen: "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstrean. It is not dying." *
Close your eyes, close your eyes and imagine a rain-pattered beginning.
_________
*Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
Make your wish, say goodbye to your wretched ego: drift into a dream.
Send the wish skimming along the night river, moonlit and silvery.
Spin a dreamcatcher spangled and intricate, a spiderweb of hope.
Gather chamomile, hops and lavender, lemongrass. Burn nag champa.
Listen: "Turn off your mind, relax and float downstrean. It is not dying." *
Close your eyes, close your eyes and imagine a rain-pattered beginning.
_________
*Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
champagne1982
Dangerous Liaison
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2002
- Posts
- 7,671
Angeline! This is rapidly growing into something epic. Let me know when it is ready and I will watch for it in the New Yorker. My gawd, goil. It's so perfectly balanced and evocative and jazzy and rhythmic and oh, did I say perfect? I'm sorry I'm gushing. It probably needs work in your eyes but from where I read (and I read it out loud) it's only tweaking hereafter.
Looking forward to III
HarryHill
Hairy fucker
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2012
- Posts
- 15,108
I'm loving the historical side of it too. I was born too late to be a beatnik, but I can imagine and feel those pre days in your writing. thanks A
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Trixareforkids
Silly Rabbit
- Joined
- May 7, 2014
- Posts
- 5,789
Me too, me too! Please sir, I want sa' mooore!
And I can't get 'a rumpled punctuation' outta my head. Some thievery may take place, if that line suddenly grows legs and walks, you'll find it at my house. Where the door's always open in case you're ever in need of a sunny place to crash.
And I can't get 'a rumpled punctuation' outta my head. Some thievery may take place, if that line suddenly grows legs and walks, you'll find it at my house. Where the door's always open in case you're ever in need of a sunny place to crash.
