Four years old and short of breath,
in a tented bed at the end of the ward,
the terror of separation in check only
because Mother had told me she would be
there in the morning, first thing.
But she wasn't, and at last I just wailed
across the receding rows of sick children
and they, like sympathetic strings,
howled back in atonal harmonics.
The bulging matron shouted: "SHUT UP!",
and grumbled loudly about “that brat”.
Later, when Mother arrived,
the matron handed me a toy
with a smile,
that did not reach her eyes.
I have a right to dance.
In my elder years, all sound has faded.
The once pure melodies are now atonal.
But kicking up a storm,
dancing is a revolutionary act.
I have a right to dance.
I awaken to a chorus of chanters,
I awaken to the legends and lore.
Part dream, part audio reception.
Part past life, part immaculate conception.
Part laugh, part delirious deception.
I am connected, I am comforted,
I am confronted, I am contorted
by forces ever so much larger,
by senses ever so much stronger.
I have a right to dance,
a right to prance in the human parade.
Like ants, my cells are self-organizing.
Like trees, my rings archive my story.
I smell and taste the music I recall.
I savor the instinctual harmonies,
the behavior of rhapsodies.
I deliver the symbolic pirouettes,
the mimetic genuflect.
All motion becomes a spectacle.
All movements shape a carnival.
With my body, I advance,
moods and dreamscapes, I enhance,
lost and forgotten in the endless expanse.
I have a right to dance!
Triptych 8-20-25 Sponsor: John Anderson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sun and storm song
eerie storm warning
light swallowed by ebony
banshee ballads rise
in mantras of humid breaths
atonal whirlwinds unleashed
downbeats of thunder
lightning rakes holes in the sky
tempest dirge rumbles
curtains of raindrops descend
plainchants of torrential rain
sun and storm collide
colors rise from light and mist
drenched in neon tears
sunbows arch in harmonies
orchestration of rainbows
All the rhythmic beats of the heart were wet
The happiness of your return is in the happiest tears
In the silent cloudy pond of the blue sky of the green veins
My excitement enjoys a bath of nirvana
There is no pair of pigeons
There is no familiar thatched dome
The hunter-cat is also gone
There is no dance and chirping of the little birds
No bamboo dale where our imaginative ghost lives
The heart is the withered bridge after smoking the tobacco leaf
Now the smoke from the chimney is like a white cloud
Where empty notebooks are life's detailed conclusions
Your arrival in this open chin of the epic evening
Your feet touch the heart of hoary loneliness
No door, no window but your calling bursts through the darkness
The extinguished lamp is burning in this apathetic pen
Come, come to the atonal heart by tuning the Krishna flute
Come O Lady Lakshmi Swarupini, come to the soul soothe
Kindle that love lamp by the bit of your lenient heart
May the lost past will be treasured in the embers dart
©Mahtab Bangalee
January 20, 2025
Chattogram
Sweet sounds softly
You make me want to sing
Sweet sounds
move me
I wanna do my thing
I gotta hankering for you
Seijaku – 8-1-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seijaku
Serenity abides with tranquility
Abiding in beauty
And deep respirations of satisfaction
Ready
Alert
Overlooking tangled mazes of overlapping obligations
Labyrinths of lists -
And atonal demands.
As the sun streaks past engorged calendars
In whirly-gigs of heavy-handed chaos
The shade of tranquility
Stretches out
Looming across the face of serendipity
With the breath of the rose
The whisper of sapphire jewels
Born from oceanic bowers.
In the shadows waits
The gift of each rubric solved
Pushing aside the tyranny of over committed -
In dawns, and Aurora’s ballet in neon slippers,
The spirit dialates,
As moonlight drips from feathery boughs,
Healed from epidemics of minutes
Swallowed by a never resting pendulum.
The poet arises, even blooms,
Ignoring the cataracts of frail dreams
When hurried footsteps and clouded hearts
Still race infected by chaotic delirium
Tripping over beauty’s outstretched boughs
To see – to notice -
To embrace
Lavender, gently waiting, with amazement.
Elegy – 7-17-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elegy for Old Growth
Through measures of metered melancholy
The tattered winds sing a rent elegy,
A pensive wail for pristine old growth,
A drifting chant in pure pitch of final farewell –
The mute tongue howls in eulogy
For virgins of a thousand turns around the sun
For helpless giants surrendered in atonal sacrifice.
Gentle titans with feathery boughs lifted their faces
To embrace misted melodies of summer and winter snows
Forest zephyrs sang lullabies for sparrows
Nesting in their rustling wombs
Then shared the secret lyrics of their song
With robins sheltered in their lofty grace of red bark
In evensongs, matins and spring symphonies.
The myrrh of burial mixes with their lingering fragrance
In desolation and in their exposed flesh,
Nude hillsides of purple rage
Scream in final dirges of farewell
Modulated into anthems sung to saplings in circles of renewal
Little ones, like half steps, change elegies to odes
The threadbare zephyr now chants paeans to remember.
Dear Super Man,
My name is Blippen Snickel
of Duessie Commonens. I seek your knowledge
of the CODA Atonal Scale Laser. Which will be
sent to the planet Mars, on the Rocketship Trissel
WL 20S. Might Black Manta and Solomon Grundy
have there way. Dearest Superman one would warn
you that green Kryptonite is used to power the
Fissen Fussulant, were Blue Kryptonite may have
been used since it is most potent in it's use in this
application. Why did these scientist want green
Kryptonite: but only to exclude you from meddling
into there affairs.
Around the Equator of Mars
a Two Mile deposit of
ice-water have been found
under the surface.
It has been said that if it melted
it would completely cover the surface
of the Red Planet 1.5 to 2.7 meters deep.
The Gamma 22 device with the Blue Crrystalant Amplifier will create a Martain Water world. There The Legion of Doom shall introduce the meanest and Vilest creature from every corner of the known and unknown universe.
Dear Superman have you the courage to be there?
Sincerly Yours
Mr. Blippen Snickel
"Aka the Doomenater"
Lost in a wistful arbor, where malaise blooms,
Mists flower in hypnotic bleak violet dusks
Shades of brooding melancholy
Bruise my treasured bouquets of dreams
And plod through ponderous mists
In metamorphic doldrums
Cold inertia spirals into lamentations,
Midnights drugged with stupor
Lean heavy on my homeless hermit heart
In withering labyrinths of tangled voices,
Atonal buds of plaintive paeans,
When pensive lethargy pierces dawn.
My rose, in apathy, sees no reason to bloom
As shades of gloom birth shadow seasons
And pale fretting’s unbroken gaze dulls dawn’s hues
Clouds of sighs ravish new shoots
Born in sweet trances of possibility -
Each breath a tedious indecision wrapped in enigma.
Dullness shrouds each new growth in greyness
A slow march into inertia’s bower of cathexis.
Mystical labyrinth of twisting harmonic warnings
Gazing into infinity’s composing handiwork –
Moonbeams in silver sung sonatas –
Ivory hued cantatas resolved from heart pacing crescendos
Spring’s soothing birdcalls after tympanic thunder.
Measured tempos of rhythms search for their time signature
As aching melodies in moveable feasts of swans
Search for resolutions in atonal firebird tango ballads
Through classical dusty suites of western legends
Not losing pitch or tripping over downbeats.
Too many notes squeeze into four square spaces
When magic flutes songs soar over seraglio dreams
Imperial marches set imprisoned phrasing free with fanfares
And close encounters of key notes discard dissonance
Seeking rhapsody in hues of blue.
Plaintive and joyful - hopeful and merciful -
Healing rhythms inspired from the eternal melody,
A lost chord to haunt then heal the midnight heart
All arranged in one accord from the Master’s apprentices
To rest in finality of one trailing echo of waltzing river.
The atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg
as an artist* no one could curb
A portraitist who never was fazed
as into the eyes we gaze
*https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/392587292505603455/
Heart Song Separation
“We got separated from us last week and I haven’t found you since.” Poet’s Quote
Too long my heart we beat in arrhythmic clashes
Languishing in sudden cardiac heart arrest
Out of sync creating dark vascular ashes
No phoenix rises from heart disease - never rests.
Too long my song we argue over melodies
Distracted by atonal hallucinations
Dismissing cradle songs of haunting rhapsodies
Elusive harmonies hide in cache creations.
Too long my words we engage in rhythmic stand offs
Glaring at my silent muse - tense verbal showdowns
Impasse of wills – procrastination’s folly doff
Disguised in masks adjectives appear as pronouns.
My aimless soul seeks union with lost heart song words
Remembering your quiet smiles of peace fullness
Your velvet vesper serene these mourning tears blur
As twilight yearns in midnight’s hypnotic stillness.
Too long my heart we beat in arrhythmic clashes
Too long my song we argue over melodies
Too long my words we engage in rhythmic stand offs
My aimless soul seeks union with lost heart song words.
12-11-20
Contest: My Created Form
Sponsor: Constance LaFrance
Wall in the Woods
A solitary pensive woodland canticle
Wanders through summer’s souvenirs,
A gypsy quilt of green transformed to crimson flame,
And prophesies of empty paeans swiftly riding
Through a meandering row of barren arms
Keeping silent watch at last light over crumbling lines,
Smooth river stones staggering
Beneath the jealous hand of gravity’s lament
For lost time and the skillful composer’s design,
As seasons fled to forget the wall’s divide;
One epoch stands at the trellis barrier of a foregone age
On a footpath two worlds collide - atonal echoes escaping
In a vision for once neat orchard rows overgrown
Separated from a scattered copse of Queen Anne’s Lace;
Seeking signs of clarity through slinking shadows
From the clear eyed composition, standing mid gracious ferns,
Barred from crossing – stepping over the seal of time signatures -
Yet led to find a rusted gate -a scrolling key -
To unlock a welcoming transition – melded vision transposition
A secret weald of melancholy song walking by a wall.
My Father’s Pen
Drizzle turning sleet.
Window pane cold
as he rests his cheek against it.
Coke fire,
astringent bitter warmth filling the room.
On the table
amber in cut glass, no ice,
next to the tablet.
An old pen
cradled in the arthritic hand.
From long ago; given
him by his father before him,
to cradle, to write.
Now his to make words,
to paint letter pictures,
to fashion the stories.
The words swirl and loop,
playing endlessly.
Atonal but rich,
they form a trellis
upon which to paint life.
Throughout the ages an aching sigh,
dispersed by waves on rabid seas which only splutter,
swept up by gusts that mask a cry which disappears
across the nettle voids,
this raw dispatch of fatal wound backlog,
atonal antiphon amok,
a caution light epistle
back in time to be quenched by secret language never heard.
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