Best Mallets Poems
I miss so many things: the old pear tree, which once lived by the walk and the bees inside. The bees almost never stung, but made the most delightful buzz. The smell of the pear blossoms and the fruit as it rotted on the ground. I even miss the colonies of ants, which swarmed. You see, I chopped it down. Well, the bees stung my ex-husband, or, he was scared of the bees, or some such thing. The bees like the cat, knew more about the true core of the man than I did. Once the cat shat on his side of the bed, and pulled the sheet over it. Even then, I didn’t really hear nature’s call. I miss the rose bushes, which I tore out because of the June bugs. “Mustn’t have untidy, ugly, things around me,” fool that I was, and continue to be. I have almost eradicated the wild violets. Soon, even I will be gone. “Who will remember all that sweetness? Oh, the pear crisp with crumbled cinnamon crust on a Fall day, all gone.”
a mown lawn
stretches to the horizon –
a hedge clipper whir
The Rose Queen was a lesser villain than I. She was imaginary and I am real, or so I believe. “If you’d lived with Alice would you have played croquet with a flamingo club?”
First Published in Contemporary haibun January 2014
Categories:
mallets, beauty,
Form:
Haibun
your brittle hands were once like mallets upon the lace of my youth
picture #2
Categories:
mallets, age, youth,
Form:
Monoku
CHANGE by Ian Munywe
upon his visage boasts sweat,industry an upheld virtue.
firm stature is exhibited,hard labour an accepted custom.
a time for toil yearns,wheat and other victuals for the future.
every stride to strive in burning heat,a quest out of perpetual penury.
feelings of disillusionment eminent,in the brink of a huge fall.
life such a baffling puzzle,everyday hustle inevitably knows no end.
a new dawn presents opportunity,quite in a rush for elevation.
an orison heard audibly,benedictions befalling a mortal.
reverted in such haste such distaste,it were best in prior times.
a new sense of belonging looming,adaptation of wanting predisposition.
amidst all the experience,hardly a thought in modesty lines.
amnesia having set in,pristine of new life in no time.
integrity eroded ferociously,candidacy annihilated in totality.
how mankind does change, indeed swiftly we tend to forget.
RISE by Ian Munywe
two sides of a divide collide inside,audibly voicing their thoughts.
optimism reverberates severely,realism ricochets as quite a formidable term.
resounding trials too eminent,life manifested in a perplexity of events.
too many fish upon this vicinity,evidently not enough room to fry.
by all means he shall triumph,by any means necessary.
hard gravel swept over by dust,feet shuffle upon tough earth.
mallets bash into rigid steel, potrait of his new born remains sole solace.
all efforts to reap this here season,barren yield begets unknown anguish.
a sojourner already on course,in vehement search for a new start.
by all means he shall triumph,by any means necessary.
wary he tranforms worn he conforms,glimpse of the past vision of the future.
feet now trod upon all rugged earth,all adorned in strapped sandals.
steel once too rigid little too hard,antiques and ornaments an eventuality.
henceforth sight of new territory such insight,cite so picturesque a gaze in awe.
by all means he shall triumph,by any means necessary.
Categories:
mallets, analogy, anniversary, betrayal, family,
Form:
Elegy
Across the globe, music ascends—a universal zephyr,
Bridging cultures in harmonious yearning;
Chords converge from Andes to the Zangezur, xenharmonic,
Dulcet tones of a duduk—in the air, they whisper.
Every note—an echo of humanity's vibration,
From flamenco's fire to the finesse of a cello's undulation;
Gamelan's gongs—a gamut of sounds' timbre,
Harmonium's hum—hearts and spirits, it serenades.
In India where the sitar intricately resonates
Juxtaposed with jazz as New Orleans quavers;
Kora's strings kiss the breeze as Africa pulses.
Lyrics leap across lands—in mosaic form, it oscillates.
Marimba's mallets are on wooden keys lightly narrate
Ney's notes always navigate in a trance-like murmur;
Oud's ornate voice offers a limericking lyric
Perhaps to partake in profound kinetic kinesis.
Qanun quietly queries—a quivering jumping jubilation
Rhythms resonate—a restorative impressive intonation;
Samba's syncopation—a spirited harking harmony
Tabla's tempo—a testament of gripping grandiloquence.
Uilleann pipes uplift with urgent a fever for fervor
Violins voice the vibrancy of the endless echo;
Whistles and winds—the world's diverse diapason
Xylophone's xylography—a cross-cultural cadence.
Yodeling yonder in the Alps' billowing bellow
Zither's zephyrs—a zenith we accentuate and attune.
Categories:
mallets, culture, dance, humanity, music,
Form:
Abecedarian
MRS. SOCIETY WEARS IT TO ALL FORMAL EVENTS
So they trekked up the mountain covered with snow
surrounded by white with only one place to go
they were headed for a place where money could be made
but the job they do leaves so many squealing and afraid
spurs on their shoes and the dollar sign in their eyes
each step brings them closer to the clear blue skies
ice picks, shovels and the all important implement
and none of these men deserve any form of compliment
footsteps bring them nigh to their prey
because this is a job with mighty good pay
it just requires heartlessness and a dark heart
with selfishness playing it's specious part
suddenly they come into vision at rest
just living snowballs about to face their final test
mallets and hammers paint the white with red
so Mrs. Society can wear the fur of a baby seal beaten until they were dead
© 2012.....copyright PHREEPOETREE ~free cee!~
Categories:
mallets, angst, society,
Form:
Quatrain
Long spider fingers wielding bells
and mallets and chimes,
sounded like what love should be, like astronomy,
like the glitter on their black silk shirts.
The music sprinkled galactic ozone on youthful minds
the chords flowed smoothly much like the Milky Way
and tasted faintly of mint and lavender.
It was aloe on burnt skin.
The minor chords
and the silent beat carried the audience with care
until the last note,
which left us breathless.
Categories:
mallets, music, simple, sky, sound,
Form:
Free verse
The lions are not called upon to dance,
High-stepping dragons have been shooed away,
On burly drums mallets don’t spryly prance,
Golden gongs coyly blush in hushed array.
Its charm the moon needs no frills to enhance,
No lantern can mimic its full display,
The city it gilds with a placid light,
The eye it woos from its Mid-Autumn height.
Categories:
mallets, appreciation, autumn, celebration, light,
Form:
Ottava rima
Soft mallets play the xylophone
In comes the low note g on trombone
Two hard mallets add their sound
There's no dry bones around
Soon the sound of a low bassoon
Bongo drum adds its tune
Wind blowing the harsh melody around
Orchestra pitch now the sound
All this floating to the ground
Soon the only thing to be heard
Loud bassoon making its words
Quiet, quite still; one lone note
Bass drum----boom
Categories:
mallets, allegory, death, family, father,
Form:
Rhyme
It's not really fair for the one who stays in fear of being defeated, whose choices are swept away by the other's single choice is a single self.
It's not really fear that keeps one too near to the One whose freedom is strangled by tendons not tender.
It's not really tears that tear one up, while rage rallies beneath the veneer of endless courtesy and, no others hear or care to see tears turn to spikes of glass and facade.
It's not really reasonable when one can't appear, to not want to be here, can't stand to sit here while others over there admire ones choice, because they don't have to be here.
It's not really real, dare not say how one feels for dread of dull thuds from sharp judges’ mental mallets.
It's not really just, when fine lines so thin, keep one wrong or right where they want one.
It's not really good when one lonely one side steps tomorrow to stop feeling.
Sorry.
Categories:
mallets, caregiving, dedication, depression,
Form:
Rhyme
They are in need of me today
of all days
so the table can be set with unbent forks
and their silent
roosters--ye soft wattles play on.
White linen veils
the ancient splintered picnicktop
for small hands
as chipped mallets tick-tock clumsily
between bowed feet.
So eggs are not too devilish to eat
or be found
among the thick Virginia grasses.
I tell stories
of the fabled light of Notre Dame
they can't believe
entirely because God is not a wafer.
They are in need of me today
as the son
for theirs has disowned himself to the hedon coast
listening to Phish,
and the postcards speak of nothing
but brilliant light.
They are in need of me today
as the daughter
for theirs is grown and has grown
a wailing cherub,
but fiddle folded napkins when I speak
of Cixous, Butler, Luce.
They are in need of me today
as the resurrection
of their spirits in fading Virginian light for I am
their beautiful heathen.
Categories:
mallets, easter, family, me, light,
Form:
Free verse
On the bus,
On the bus,
On the bus,
Again.
Practicing the beats,
On the back of a seat,
All I can feel,
The beat on my seat too.
Cause we're the band on the moon,
Gettin' ready for the contest,
Got my black dress on,
Ready to be the best.
Got my music in my hand,
We're the band on the moon,
We the best in the land.
Got my mallets in my hand,
Sweatin' in places I've never been,
Got the tempo goin',
We about to begin.
Now then that's over,
We got sight readin',
People don't know that,
We be beatin' them.
Cause we're the band on the moon,
Gettin' ready for the contest,
Got my black dress on,
Ready to be the best.
Got my music in my hand,
We're the band on the moon,
We the best in the land.
Newmmmmmm,
Newnewmmmmmmmm,
Newmnewmnewmnewmmmmmmm,
Hey.
On the bus again,
Director on board,
Holdin' up our trophy,
We all yellin' "Thank you lord".
Cause we're the band on the moon,
Gettin' ready for the contest,
Got my black dress on,
Ready to be the best.
Got my music in my hand,
We're the band on the moon,
We the best in the land.
We the best,
We the best,
We the best,
Double time.
Categories:
mallets, art, devotion, hope, music,
Form:
Lyric
You pick roses
And bundle them together
As I watch from the door
Like piles of sand
Pressed against the shore
Now the flowers are dead
Petals fall from your hand
Away from it’s lifeless bulb
And land onto the floor
Your voice once spoke
In what were whispers
Are now just words mumbled
Into inexplicable syllables
Unbalanced they just crumble
Like the pounding of mallets to tin
I strain to hear the impalpable
As my thoughts lose their pace
And like mist I disappear
Now I turned away
From the proclivity of who I was
For what you've seen was a ghost
To the light I now disappear from us
Away from that unloving host
Who’s roots tried to hold me in it’s lust
Eyes opened to a boy who was lost
Tears dry up in the heat of the sun
As I leave the pain and move on...
Categories:
mallets, introspection, lost love, love,
Form:
Beethoven smashes one piano after another.
He shears through keyboards,
a peasant scything hay.
The composer's fingers don't grow deaf,
they become deeper, more blunted,
like mallets.
His apartment is disorderly,
tools and equipment
are hidden in Dresden figurines,
in elderly Delftware,
ball-peen hammers crammed
into the whittled stems of goose quills.
Augers, grinders and rotary tillers
are rendered into themes and motifs.
Wrecking crews hum and stamp,
tables thump out allegro dissonance.
Into this din and demolition
plows a heavy sonata
the hard-nosed 'Hammerklavier'
bulldozing its trenchant path
into the cramped streets;
where in the absence of safety barriers,
a defiant deconstruction
has begun.
Categories:
mallets, poetry,
Form:
Blank verse
With palms so chaste and a grip so pure
She wraps her fingers around the mallets
Letting them sit in the space between her thumbs and first fingers;
When she makes her first few strokes
Hammering smoothly up and down,
There is no other sound but
a breast of ribs whose mopane mellows the ear
And a throat of cigarette paper
whose hum somewhat bellows unto the heart;
Then she sings a ballad of two lovers whose clans forbid it,
Soon the astound trees rustle in accord,
Her voice is a wrench that loosens the valves in my eyes;
Tears collecting with the first few words,
I wish my lover was here with me.
After thirteen stanzas, my lonely eyes leak with homesick-tears ...
Deep in the ridging belly of the Zambezi valley,
A lily of the Kariba has found
grace in her hand with the xylophone.
17/07/17
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Categories:
mallets, africa, nostalgia, poems,
Form:
Free verse
Emilia In Romagna
Somewhere a lost little girl
Is crying in her bedroom closet
Because she can’t hear
Her mama
Moving about anymore
She can see dim shapes
Mama stored stuff in here
Luggage scarfs tennis racquets
Croquet mallets
Boxes of old photographs
Useless
Rubbish
Apparently not water or food
She can hear the ancient
Transistor radio
Mama always kept on
Pavarotti is proclaiming
His love for another faulty insecure woman
In an opera that makes
As much sense as this
Her disconsolate glissandos
Ravaged juddered weeping
Rival the maestro
For now
Until later
Categories:
mallets, absence, allegory, art, aubade,
Form:
Free verse