Best Improvising Poems
I'm going to try one more time
To write an intellectual rhyme
Some with complicated words
Most of which I've never heard
Words that cudgel my brain
So I can deliberate and strain
My antediluvian brain
To think from a new perspective
Endeavour to be more selective
Perhaps I should keep improvising
These sesquipedalian words are so misguiding
It would save much more time
To stick (or adhere) to my simple rhyme
My favorite dream,
Not so ordinary, I guess,
Not sex, wealth, fame,love...
Not seeing long missing ones,
Not vengence, not pride,
Just simply bona fide,
Getting my hands,
On a grand cathedral
pipe organ
I've had this dream often,
Give me 5 or 6 manuals (keyboards),
Leave me some snack food,
And leave, shut the door,
And I will explore the music
I so adore.....
I'll sleep on a pew,
If it's all the same to you,
But 90% of my time
Will be at that console,
Improvising till in the bench,
I will wear through a hole,
Don't need no frigg'en audience,
Don't need no recording device,
Just let me play on
And to my own joy, let it suffice
The mighty roar of pipes,
Fill the universe,
It will be glorious,
And not a curse...
Oh, what ecstacy!!
Can you just see me?!?!
I just hope, with all those keyboards,
I have both in the same key!!
Harrowing shifts placating Palestinian patients
Awkwardly healing bones, injuries war caused
Comfort we gave seemed severely insufficient
Soul mates meeting among pain, implausible
Crutch hobbling boy with copious haphazard grin
Caught both our hearts, we smuggled him chocolate
You took every free chance to sit and joke with him
Your easy demeanor is medicine, patients responded
Images of rubble sifting shadow-faced citizens
Inescapable magnitude replayed, dream tethered
Impact we made upon fractured limbs and spirits
Told us each smile gained was worthy endeavour
I've speculated our distance pronounced our parallels
A far, foreign land artificially grew our new love found
Strongest logic shows me your benevolence plentiful
Desire stunned us, despite draped shapeless gowns
A year improvising in Gaza's limping hospice system
Threatened to take my buoyancy amongst its tragedy
Compassion you dealt exposed a myriad of wisdom
Guardians of burden bandaged turmoil's inched recovery
Excitement of moving in together, calm logic forgotten
Several short weeks after Gaza, shared goals discussed
A jubilant wedding, white gown without tie backed cotton
Box pile totems, future unpacked together, a time for us
17th August 2020
JCB Burl, Sponsor
Contest, 'A Time For Us'
You spoke a new language
of rarefied air
guided nonchalantly
through curving channels of brass
Conduits of cool
juries of jazz
floating past soulful valves
harbingers of what will come
Slender fingers
improvising storylines
magistrates of melancholy
bailiffs of bop
Miles from the mainstream
a milestone of
modern modalities
kind of blue
I practice the right thing to do in situations
I teach these practices to children
I preach staying calm and in control
But when my emotions grab my soul's heart
Watch out! Stand back and pray
I think I am ready to show my tolerance and kindness
I should be fully prepared to give them a voice
But when they rile me up, and twist me backwards
All logic and well-thought-out intentions
Fly out the window and slide under a gooseberry bush
So here I go again, improvising.
The Dilettante Diaries: "Open Door Barefoot"
Open door to closed room
Ceiling smashed
Stars in a very clear sky
Fresh air
taken into lungs
Risen
from
the
Lake of None
Arrival of White Doves
Broken glass, careful where you step
Barefoot Bleeds Love
(Lovejoy-Burton/October 2018)
for my daughter, Georgia
"THAT crazed girl improvising her music. Her poetry, dancing upon the shore, Her soul in division from itself Climbing, falling She knew not where, Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship, Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing Heroically lost, heroically found."
The Poet Pleads with the Elementals
THE Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
Have pulled the Immortal Rose;
And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,
The Polar Dragon slept,
His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:
When will he wake from sleep?
Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,
With your harmonious choir
Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,
That my old care may cease;
Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight
The nets of day and night.
Dim powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be
Like the pale cup of the sea,
When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim
Above its cloudy rim;
But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow
Whither her footsteps go.
(William Butler Yeats)
"Fly On" /Coldplay
https://youtu.be/qtooMN9QZKw
What a city I murmur to myself looking at its map.
We approached the city known as Dis,
with its vast army and its burdened citizens.
At last we reached the moats
dug deep around the dismal city.
What destroys the poetry of a city?
Automobiles destroy it,
and they destroy more than the poetry.
Dante and Virgil chased by 7 or 8 dangerous devils
Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey . . .
Our heroes reduced from metaphysical philosophers
interested in god and what man has done to man
to improvising primitive tools for survival.
Hope abandoned, we rate our chances of expiring
in the nuclear fire – excellent –
during the decline of western civilization.
On the other hand, I hope
our current problems are only temporary
and it’s just a matter of time before
the public ignores the 24-hour news cycle.
Bad news sells but the good life’s all around us.
One feels love and devotion
even for the 60 million who voted for our opponent.
Vaclav Havel said with a wisdom well beyond brilliance:
“Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
It is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not dependent
on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart
that transcends the world as it’s immediately experienced.
It is not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense
no matter how it turns out.”
It resembles grief. But it's not quite grief. I'll give you grief.
Certain days planned to be eventful I look forward to for weeks.
Let the peaceful transfer of power proceed. The sorrow and the pity.
Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth.
When the laws are kept, how proudly the city stands!
When the laws are broken, what of the city then?
We are moving through some allegory between a City of Hope,
where history has been abolished, and a City of History,
where hope can be slipped in only as contraband.
Failing to achieve understanding, we're searching
outer space for an entity to unite us as humanity.
That person, or city, is consciousness.
Two ancient female poets are a revelation,
the clarity of their complaints: lost lover, lost city.
Our enemy eventually becomes our brother,
his misery lifted by coming to her city.
I
First period each morning she meets their languid sighs
Their low moaning at new tasks to be undertaken
She must be upbeat, no matter her personal woes,
In her crisp, clean dress and comfortable walking shoes
She steps briskly around the room with encouraging
Words, smiles for the underprivileged girl so needy
A hint of special affection for a wayward lad
A hard taskmaster some former students have averred
True, indeed, she has high expectations, she demands
The highest quality of work from her young charges
Same she always brings to her overcrowded classroom
Where she allows no insult or bullying others.
II
She faces some difficult parents who seldom know
What transpires in the average classroom teachers' day
Threatening, browbeating, and some will even threaten
Throwing up angry hands in defeat, she never does.
She does what is necessary to help them succeed
Her main objective is moving her students forward.
III
Planning and improvising, then she will implement
She will go home to care for her waiting family--
Convincing, she will console, and likely she transports
She will cook, do cleaning, shopping, sometimes pays the bills
After the family is settled down, she begins
Her preparations for the next day in her classroom
And, a teacher does all of this on the lower end
Of the pay scale in most every school district I know.
Like the days of invasive explorers, your plight commenced
You went explosive with yields of unrestrained wealth
Dishing out involuntarily, streams of the inflammable oil and gas
From your natural reservoir, they flowed relentlessly
Filling the insatiable pockets of merciless exploiters
And saves of ambitious tyrants with abyss of desires
When the rain washed through you into the ocean
It saturated their evaporated poison, to your detriment
It rendered uninhabitable, your courses and earth
To flora and fauna, flourishing for your sustenance
And in squalor, you watched your trove emptied to itching laps
And helplessly, you watched your pride develop wings and flew
Because your sons swam in despair and self-pity
They became agitated, restive and mutinous
In attempt to protect and resuscitate your emptied chest
They sank you further into undeserving disgrace
Even your daughters, in shameful act, they marred your pride
Like a frustrated childless widow, you mourned your future
Behold a new dawn, fresh with dewy hope, Niger Delta
Behold your children - calm, sober and improvising
The land and sea in joint effort are returning your glory
With remorse your exploiters are returning
And in search of your face for reconciliation and favour
To your sudden elevated height, they flock to pledge allegiance
Weep no more, treasure trove of a giant -giant of Africa
Weep no more, splendour of a jewel - jewel of Africa
Weep no more, Niger Delta!
Echoes of love
between woman and man.
Holding on to hope.
In the palm of my hands.
Walking my faith
down city streets.
With the help of God,
guiding my feet.
Tears soaking up the concrete.
Like Martha, I weep.
I've been blind.
Never sleep.
Look what hell has done to me.
I pray the Lord,
my soul to take.
If I should die
before I wake.
Teach my heart to love
not hate.
Soul raped,
by Demons
I can't seem to shake.
Still I reach, for Heaven's gates.
Grandma always said
watch out for them snakes.
Improvising on scraps.
To make a plate.
The Devil wears a mask
in the land of the fake.
The wicked will do anything
just to live great.
As Angels protect
for goodness sake.
Though the Devil's working.
God's never late.
Right on time.
Hope!!!
Hope is mine.
"Hope"
WAITRESS OF MY ORDER
God since rules and joules
Protects and provides
Thou shall order a Christmas mistress
A true teacher gloved with grace and care.
Who squarely wears healthy communications,
In competitive advertisers of sun and moon supervisions.
Danishly blessed with wealthier tolerance,
To pass life’s unpredictable weather turbulence.
Should……..would be fabricated or traits,
With compromising and improvising grains.
Welcoming diversity of cruel world of happenings,
Or graph moon phases till December dazzlings.
A mustard seed of all conditions
Where her children playfully dwell in definitions
And serves with heart open palm
In stream humility of princess calm.
Gladly listen to all ages with ample attention,
That never intonates gossips’ intention.
Admirable household oriented skimmed individual.
But friendlier and great just principal.
Diphthong you fake, you charlatan.
'ph' and 'th' be not vowels!
What strange bed fellows in ensemble
A Greek tongue twister to boot!
But I love you, all the same.
Lovely sound,
Love at first sight.
Your meaning so evocative of couples, partners, pairs in harmony.
Vowels apart, but sounding one after the other, a duo performance.
Separate identity retained, but embellished and combined to create a new sound.
A Diphthong is like writers and how their readers respond.
The writer, conducts a choir of readers with vowel sound voices,
Each idea read, evokes multiple responses,
With new thoughts and sounds conceived, one after the other.
Each reader in harmony, a duo with writer, improvising with the writer's lead.
It is a diphthong concert of souls, jamming together.
That big house was built in the seventeen century when the faith in God was strong,
it told many stories of men with bruised hands and chiseled faces;
they built it with craft and embellished it with stained-glass windows;
girls in their pretty black dresses looked outside and contemplated sunsets for long.
I bumped into a frail woman leaning on a cane, she stared at it with much emotion
and sobbing, " Their youth is wasted, They are the orphans rejected by society! "
" Why is it so? " I asker her puzzled." They should be adapted by somebody
and get out of there before they are too old! " Her voice expressed a great concern.
And looking in those tearfull eyes I answered her, " I must disagree! "
" Do you want them to be entrusted to strangers who won't love them as
their parents? " Parents! They have none! They are the daughters of drug addicts! "
She raised her voice which showed anger while she rubbed her injured knee.
" Madam, why are you crying? Does someone dear to you live there? I questioned
her improvising the answer. " My granddaughter ! My poor granddaughter! "
I continued the conversation " Is it a children's care center?" She solemnly replied
wiping her flowing tears with a soft tissue, " It's an orphanage! It's real hell for her! "
The friendly woman told me a story a few people knew: the story of that forgotten
orphanage where newborn were taken in by nuns who did it for love, not for gain;
" On Cherry Road, this house is looked down as a scourge! Sins of their mothers!
Why don't they go to visit them, hug them and give them Christmas presents? "
No other city is more unique
than Napoli; around corners,
you'll find surprises that intrigue
eyes staring at monuments
that have some mystique powers!
And walking through the very narrow and noisy streets
of various sounds: you'll feel a drop of casual water
from the clotheslines above...ah, those scented sheets
waving while people eat treats and breathe the spring air
and listen to musicians improvising chords on their guitar!
Come to the city where the scent of oven-baked
pizza lures: live the simple life of the Neapolitans...
folks who sing classical songs that make everyone glad;
even Venice cannot compare to the enthusiasm and thrills
of the locals while flowers are offered by generous hands!
// This is my tribute to the many blessings that music brings to our
lives. I know many of you share this enthusiasm and gratitude. //
Appreciating an amazing artform: allegro, andante, or adagio -
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms: beautiful berceuse, ballad, and bolero
Classical concertos and Christmas chorales crescendo concordantly
Dancers delight to dizzying drums and delectable dynamics
Ensemble eloquently emotes euphonic etudes and elegies
Flautist fluttertongues flute in frenzied fantasia or fantastic fugue
Guitar gallivants through gavotte, graced by glockenspiel glissandos
Heavenly hymns, happily harmonized, hearkening hearty hallelujahs
Improvising instruments inspiring in impromptu inventions,
Jovial jazz juxtaposition of jubilant, jamming jitterbugs
Kalimba keeps count as keyboardist kinetically caresses keys
Love song lullabys - lilting, legato lines of luxuriant, longing lyrics
Minuet melodies and madrigals marking mellifluous motifs
Nutcracker's necklace of nourishing notes: a nighttime nocturne
Orchestra's opulent overture opus, oratorio's operatic octet
Pianist plays presto pianissimo pitches in pulsing pizzicato perfection
Quartets and quintets on a quest for quality quiescent quarter notes
Romantic rhapsody rhythms resonate as rock 'n roll reverberates
Symphonies and sonatas send spine shivers, saxophone solos soar
Tenor troubadours tremolo in tempo as trumpet thrills with trills
Utopia of unassuming ukuleles unwinding in unison
Voluptuous violin vibrato, virtuoso vocalist, vivace vintage vibraphone
Well-tempered woodwinds wield wonderful waltzes worth whistling
Xylophone eXudes eXcitement in eXquisite eXtemporaneity
Yearning for youthfulness, you yodel "Yesterday"
Zesty zither anyone?