Best Glissando Poems
Autumn teases the last cinnamon leaves
clinging to branches with amber fingers.
Seasonal change awakens Nature's thieves,
a wafting breeze that doggedly lingers,
stripping trees bare; a scene that sadly grieves.
Fall sings in a rhythmic glissando voice
announcing it's time that she takes the helm.
We acquiesce, given no other choice.
She reigns over Indian Summer's realm,
painting meadows and vales as we rejoice.
Acorns are gathered by hoarding squirrels
who scurry to find the tasty jewels,
cherishing them as valuable pearls.
As north winds blow, the temperature cools.
Chimney smoke drifts in white ribbons and curls.
Time for harvesting ripe apples for pies.
Halloween pumpkins are put on display.
Carefully, we watch Autumn's sullen skies
Clouds grow heavy, in shades of nimbus gray.
A gaggle of geese in migration, flies.
Autumn dresses herself in wrinkled gown.
Ruffled skirt in hues of crimson and gold.
Bodice in ochre, trimmed in walnut brown,
a russet cloak worn when a chill takes hold,
woven from wizened leaves that tumbled down.
July 13, 2022
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 1 Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
Originally posted in September 2021
I murmur like a rivulet through the
hitch of your hands, where the canyons
carve their parched longing into your fingers—
where silences sublimate like cera,
pooling beneath your glissando touch.
Your tremolo breath convulses rough and low
like sibilant submersion in water—
spilling, sinking, staining everything it meets.
I watch the estuary of your gaze split my horizon—
watch you hush abysmal eyes into
celestially arched surrender.
There is no stillness between starlight,
only the pull of mighty magnitudes,
fuses lit beneath the ribs,
pulses and throbs teaching the air
how to cleave—how to…
sforzando!
Love, here, is neither reserved nor reticent—
it is lightning bottled in glass—
hellfire burning beneath the tide—
language that deconstructs
even as it is uttered.
I step forward—some faltering cadence,
some submitting ascension—placing my hands into your fire,
not to be consumed, but to remember
how stars revel and rain.
“Fall sings its song in a rhythmic glissando voice”
for the feathered leaves on flight, rustling to rejoice.
Inspired by : Autumn’s Russet Leaves by : Lin Lane (2025)
Fingertips
fall—
not like
stones,
but like rain,
plucked silver
threading the air.
Each string
holds a hush,
a breath not yet
forgotten.
The musician builds—
not a score,
but the curve
of a heron’s wing
skimming dusk
softly vanishing
in a single glissando.
The guzheng does not speak.
It spills:
vibrato,
a tide rising
then breaking
against memory.
Sound leans back—
not toward silence
——but toward a
distant shore
we once
heard.
________________
Note: Guzheng is a traditional Chinese musical instrument.
She’s still; an interlude in solitude.
Twilight mournful, his voice ghostly distant,
introspection.., meditation imbued,
she sits alone, bitter-sweet existent.
Lamentations she weeps in glissando.
Cacophony! Consciously in discord,
love reminisce, arpeggio tempo,
she sits alone, remembrance, two-edged sword.
Bethought bliss, wedded they waltzed plucking notes,
of musical blues and exotic spiced scents…
their life of love evocative emotes,
she sits alone mingling blessings - repents.
Chrystal-tone melodies, bass-tone longing,
Moonlight Sonata melancholy eyes..
pain and pleasure, her reverie thronging,
she sits alone, his ghostly voice in guise.
Susan Ashley
August 5, 2017
~ Second Place ~
Contest: Best Rhyming Poem July-September 2017
Sponsor: John Hamilton
~ Third Place ~
Contest: She Sits Alone
Sponsor: Eve Roper
Overflow of the waters of Lake Itaska
You carry your wealth to the waiting world,
Mighty Mississippi, half savior, half sewer,
Plant and animal wastes, dissolved minerals,
Venting prairie deluge, dividing a Nation,
Exposed aquifer of Great Plains, home of Buffalo ghosts,
And their equally threatened ancestor, the prairie dog.
Standing at your mouth I can wade your depths,
Even jump your width in places,
Though it is more difficult than the boy imagined,
And the winter's overgrowth problematic.
Your lightning like flash across the land (1)
Has haunted my dreams the whole of my life
And pulled at my soul like the moan of distant trains.
Now I am here at last, my dream becoming liquid,
Wooden oars, tent, canoe and provisions waiting,
Dr. Peppers stored in a sturdy ice chest.
I am more than ready to see the world through your eyes,
And to meet the sea as well in your company (if fate allows.)
My wife a novice and myself not much more,
We launch ourselves, glissando (2) toward New Orlean.
Brian Johnston
Sept. 19, 2014
Poet's Notes:
Everything in this poem is true as I can best remember. I was 28 at the time and my wife Kathy was 24 so it has been a few years ago that we did this. The eight chapters so far are not the end of this poem. I have at least 3 more chapters planned, one on portaging around dams, one on going through locks (beginning in Minneapolis-St. Paul) , one on leaving the river after traveling over 1,000 miles in 7.5 weeks, and then a final clean up including lessons learned and post trip consequences.
(1) 'lightning like flash' - I was imagining here how much the path taken by the Mississippi across the land actually resembles a lightning bolt's flash across the sky to earth.
(2) glissando - A musical word meaning a gradual sliding (transition) in tone from one note to the next note on the musical scale.
descent:
crack!
sear sting
oh…
shocked into clarity
sharp edged relief of now
laid bare on a tempest
slick satin slides
catches my wrists
pulls up
pulls tight
paradigm shift
into controlessness
now bleeds into forever
the lash polishes beauty
breathe, baby
shallow and slow
pulse under fingertips
my tensile strength
stretch tested
stripped to basic need
growl groan glissando
snap crackle pop
exploration:
intellectual understanding withers in the flare of experiential wisdom.
to be willingly splayed to the whim of Fate is freedom.
how many times have you seen your true self?
do you look away from your flaws, your deep secrets?
hidden in your safe, little boundaries, do you wonder about the depth of your perceptions?
the life of the mind, sliced loose from so called reality, lunges into the unknown with a
will.
how far back does the cave go?
surfacing:
it begins to creep in
the blade of lamplight
the spinning fan
the cool, damp pillow
flutterblink and sigh
stretch against the wondrous ache, a souvenir
downsplashed again on a tragically mistaken world
color dims as soul sight recedes
sound unlayers and sinks to mere noise
muted and glaring, life awaits reentrance
oh, fine.
if I must…
Leaves fall in the Fall.
Leaves flump in the Downtick.
Leaves flop in the Glide.
Leaves founder in the Comedown.
Leaves descend and drop in the Tumble.
Leaves nosedive and lurch in the Downflow.
Leaves pitch and capsize in the Forced Landing.
Leaves topple and cascade in the Gravitation.
Leaves abseil and rappel in the Descent.
Leaves coast and sideslip in the Downrush.
Leaves skid and avalanche in the Dropping.
Leaves swoop and plunge in the Coast.
Leaves settle and precipitate in the Cropper.
Leaves glissade in the Glissando.
. . . where's a rake when I need it?
Long lonely ballads sooth my soul,
recounting loves which ne’r grow old.
With tales of lives, of toil and strife
which linger on the sharpest notes.
Laments pining through the key of D.
Songs sung in dissonant harmony.
Scratching, haunting, riddles
Whispering on whistle or fiddle.
And, Oh the maudlin harmony
which makes us all weep free
to know that other people cried
lost their loves yet survived.
So let me slide on glissando
Between the notes with vibrato
Let me heal upon the wail
of ancient memories.
Contest:Soul Tunes
It started on D - flat,
succulent & succinct
soft & rhythmic
loaning hearts pats.
the wail of the piano
caressing the voices' glissando
riffs tampered with the tune,
notes trailing tracks of crest,
demisemiquaver pruned
by the demigod crochet:
parts of belts
accompanying baritone,
baroque & tormenting bass
nursing decrescendo,
an atlas
And then clef,
embellishing the melody,
encore spill the best,
swift fortemente
Hearts lured,
esophagus of the musician
shifting. Pure
steps moving in pleasure,
as the lyrics complimented
the melody
A coda:
a flat accompaniment
severed the passion
as the keys & notes did melt
tumult in rhythm,
sundry languages inflected
the lyrics.
like concerto grosso
of courante on
bagpipes, accordion,
harps, obeos & paino.
now we're stuck
in the maze of this music,
no virtuoso could make meaning of
the tune, lyrics or melody
but we're moving our bodies,
till those that gets weary
goes to hear death's string.
19:09:22:18:47
SPRING RHAPSODY
Spring
like a harp glissando
infecting the air
showering light-dust
bathes the soul
This sudden hurrying
sung by the breeze
the lyrics moist and determined
Out the door!
with rakes hoes gloves
light-jacketed will
Drops
Mother-kissed
ping!
sting!
Shout!
the newborn cry
Pat a fat pink-bottomed cloud
MELANCHOLIA
Had he left putting me
in reverie of melancholia?
Rather I left him
and since then peace had left me forever
while I am whirling in rue of turbulent tornedo.
Wearing charcoal mask appearing dusty dusk.
Pricking pain of buried passion piercing my mind.
In morose fading twilight
birds are chirruping in glissando.
I am sinking in fathomless abyss in grief of ocean,
Where pearl of dolor is taking shape
from tears of amour
oozing from chasm of broken heart
cascading opulent on inflow of ambedo.
I am drowning down on cosmic illusion
in this lugubrious night.
I am floating to descry:
My love once lively lovely like Full Moon
now lamenting in lean crescendo.
02/17/19
Third Place
'A Tritina For Messina' Contest by charles messin
' Completely Your Choice (19)' Contest by Brian Strand
MELANCHOLIA
Had he left putting me
in reverie of melancholia?
Rather I left him
and since then peace had left me forever
while I am whirling in rue of turbulent tornedo.
Wearing charcoal mask appearing dusty dusk.
Pricking pain of buried passion piercing my mind.
In morose fading twilight
birds are chirruping in glissando.
I am sinking in fathomless abyss in grief of ocean,
Where pearl of dolor is taking shape
from tears of amour
oozing from chasm of broken heart
cascading opulent on inflow of ambedo.
I am drowning down on cosmic illusion
in this lugubrious night.
I am floating to descry:
My love once lively lovely like Full Moon
now lamenting in lean crescendo.
11/04/20
Second Place
'Ambedo' Contest by Silent One
i can feel the darkness as it engulfs me from the inside
beyond consiousness i dance with the figures of mud
as the claws ripped through my back my heart died
and i slipped into my bed of the fallen one blood
reanimated with nothing more than my tattered wings hanging frail
white flower petals lined the ground waiting to be imbrued
solemn vows from the shadows spoken through my weathered veil
my dying silhouette asphxyiating from my heartache yet to be subdued
dancing with my old incarnated being, killing the light that once gleamed
awakening the oncee malignant tears, i pull myself apart again
disecting my obscure temptations to pleasure the pain i've been deemed
destroying the lucidity i once had... all for a kiss that will lead me to morbid sin
The Elegy
From Chicago to Washington
Guns play their fatal crescendo
Not much glissando
Too many musicians
Or too many instruments?