Best Beethoven Poems
In a huge open field,
lay the pristine new snow;
and beyond a mountain view.
The sky is a cloudless blue,
and no footsteps can be seen;
in the vast open space of white.
Yet, a grand piano stands,
in this place of no footsteps;
where a man is playing Beethoven.
For me . . .
_________________________
November 25, 2012
Poetry/Free Verse/A Man Playing Beethoven
Copyright Protected, ID 11-438-307-25
All Rights Reserved, 2012, Constance La France
poets, the evergreens,
their poems, the word
gospels that didn't make
the big book like
birds on overhead wires
accidentally perched
in the sequence of a
Beethoven symphony
but those words divine,
while I figure out grain
on half lit wooden floors
reduced, now, to poems
in pyjamas, oh my life,
delayed, enforcing other
immortalities
Contractual agreements with publisher caused DELETION
Beethoven,
I love you.
But you play your
Moonlight Sonata
On a bleak night and
I am left-
In my coffin
Bones devouring
Flesh-
Eyes drowning in chasms
Left wide open-
Wearing a black dress
With a white collar
Sweeping dust and talking
To myself
All the delicate Ballerinas
Of the world
Softly dance with those
Grotesque girls
Who were told they were
Too fat to perform
When they were alive
And the Cavaliers watch from afar-
As they write poetry drained
With Disdain towards
The Love
They never had and never lost
The Emersons and the Twains
Watch quietly--
The Einsteins, Newtons, and Hookes-
Scribble formulas on napkins
As they try to calculate
The changing notes your Piano Plays---
The kings quarrel and start a war.
Scared for the life I have already lost I-
Clench to the hand of the
Man next to me
Who died of cancer because he
Swore and drank too much
All our thoughts collide
The piano plays on
Newspapers rot
And it all flashes before me-
The Pharaohs
The Kings
The Wars in the name of God
The poems
The symphonies
Centuries filled with Nothing
People
People
People
It all flashes before me-
As we die again
And again
The process repeats itself at least twice-
Until I wake up in my bed,
Shudder,
Take off my earphones
And stare at the
Empty room around me.
we drove late afternoon
over the dark Rhein,
the sky fake with orange,
to Bonn : to a house with cool, emplty rooms,
white with words, dark with chords,
to an elegant Hammerflügel ;
for my father the end of a journey,
but the start of the sublime
( for A.F. Philibert)
There was poetry in their lovemaking,
the way he brushed her hair aside
as he gazed piercingly into her eyes,
she welcomed his tender caresses
as well as his demanding fervor,
he cherished her sensually inclined
free spirit pleasing his every whim,
the rhythmic concerto between
them whispered Moonlight Sonata
& climaxing crescendos' finale
amid Beethoven's 5th symphony
of harmonious little deaths further
intimate refrains' melodic dalliance
On Thursday March 29, 1827
Vienna Salzburg
It wasn’t a happy day for Christoph
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Three O’clock Afternoon nine Priests blessed the coffin
September 1822
Dear Uncle a mad man has moved upstairs into Apartment
Beethoven
Dear Christoph Mr. Beethoven will settle soon
Another week has passed life is no calmer
Beethoven no clothes, rude, and weird
He’s ruined Fathers office.
But I still forgive him.
The loudest composer, ’tis clear,
was Beethoven - man of the year.
The Germans are proud
of music that’s loud
because Ludwig van couldn’t hear.
(chance operations)
Beethoven’s orchestra torpedoed
Restoring life to the platform
Desire’s found, as the quiet storm raged on
Deliciously clinging to the heartbeats
Of every symphonic note
There was a true rhapsody
As, Beethoven’s first symphony played on
Awakening to the shout of the sun
Animals scurry in the underbrush
As I step out, barefooted, into the damp grass.
Alive and blood coursing
Through my veins, I am
Astonished at how fresh I feel.
All aglow with red cheeks shining
And now I hesitate as
My memory fills with all the cares I carry
But the birdsong is too much for me
And I begin to hum along with them.
A lone human voice
Joining the concert that is Nature
In all its delight and wonder.
Why should I burden this beautiful dawn
With all that so often weighs on me?
The joy of the day is greater than
Anything that we contrive
To distract us from the music of the firmament.
The eager embrace of the warm sun
And the anticipation of the possibility of
All that is to come.
I dance to the possible
To the unknown and unforeseen, whatever it may be.
To live is to see with constant wonder
What we never knew could be.
My friend, why have you spun out of joint?
Or am I now cross-eyed?
Is one of us running out of rhythm?
Or both spinning in circles?
Why is everything I say just a question?
Can I speak or write a statement?
Would you play Beethoven,
or shall I put on Mozart?
Is this not something I ask you?
So why should this be so?
I will change.
Gosh, I've just made a statement, not asked a question!
Was this not a great conversion?
(May 2022)
The faces are
stamped in.
They sit and play.
having done this
all their maturing lives.
It is familiar and new.
I love the immersion in
civilization, want more,
Like a tantalizing spice.
the faces reach into me,
dancing in soundspace.
The time
fused with sound,
are sufficient
in the faces of the men,
but in the woman's face
a permission remains.
Melodic ingenuity of Ludwig van Beethoven
raised music to the realm of art, cadence woven.
A piano virtuoso, he turned into a composer unique,
initiated the romantic era in coexistent classical music.
He infused momentum in symphony,
sonorous in the ninth with harmony.
A few love affairs he had,
but remained bachelor sad,
lived amidst failed romance in agony.
A romantic, he had a strong personality,
struggled heroically with deafness silently.
Despite affliction caused by leaded wine addiction,
composed transcendent music of designed perfection.
Blessed is the world because of Beethoven's music.
Escaping pain, he played piano for his father.
Enduring, to avoid the wrath of the nightstick,
Transforming musical style; never mediocre.
Hopelessly in love with his “Immortal Beloved”
Overtaken by deafness, he composed with fervor.
Victorious, despite disability…patience.
Evermore an eccentric, music played in his head.
Never quitting, he immortalized perseverance.
© November 6, 2011
Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
FORM: Acrostic with rhyme
Written for Poetry Soup Member Contest: ANYWHICHWAY any theme/form max of 15 lines
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Ludwig Beethoven baptised in Bonn
loved both music&song
Prolific was his second name
deafness never inhibited this game