Best Tones Poems
My friend,
do you see
every finger
every key
Can you hear
words to sound
float around
Do you feel
movement sing
coloring
Will you take
simple tones
played alone
Making music
all your own
Listen to
melodies
in the trees
flowing softly
on the breeze
Smell the air
Hum your song
to the birds
that sing along
Every giggle
every sneeze
resonates
everywhere
In your heart
smiling there
Place your feet
on the floor
pirouette
evermore
In your soul
take a chance
come with me
sing and dance
***
June 5, 2017
Copyright © Chris Green and Darren White
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
Fingers danced, a melody untold,
A bass sound, a promise to unfold.
Special tones, a language of the heart,
Thumping pitches, a passionate start.
Brief records, a love story cast,
From cries of the soul, a message unsurpassed.
Past the mind, a whisper so true,
Straight to the heart, where love’s promises accrue.
Bass sounds hummed a constant refrain,
Preserved melodies echoed through the rain.
I love you, the notes whispered in the breeze,
I love you, a love that would never appease.
Last notes of tones, fading into the night,
But the echo remained, a burning light.
I love you, a promise whispered true,
A bass sound, with preserved melody,
I love you,
I love you.
A symphony of silence, please untold,
Melodies yearn to break free and unfold.
Bass sound, a promise to keep,
Preserved melodies, love’s whispers sleep.
Special tones, shapes in the air,
Language only two hearts can share.
Thumping pitches, a rhythmic retreat,
Promises whispered, never to be beaten.
From the soul’s cries, music takes flight,
Human voices pierce through the night.
Bass sounds hummed, a constant refrain,
Preserved melodies whisper through the rain.
I love you, the notes softly sing,
I love you, a love on the wing.
Last notes fade, a promise held so true,
I love you, whispered anew.
I love you,
I love you,
Staple diets tainted gray
still pesticides they spray
gallops horse of dapple grey
fourth beast say, ”hell’s to pay”
as life bubbles into shape
for human illusion’s sake
two thousand twelve’s wake
Love in life is not a fake
Somber tones may meander
worldly concepts detest a new face
many old faces doth not erase
Love’s face, by perdition’s race
Above a ridge, knowing not how on
some parcel of a lucent dome, we meander
to breathe in the vapor of moonlight ,
gently burying her crown upon breasts of valleys
endowing a lush ritual: the great gig in the sky...
of trees rustling in a prance, of a wind
cascading unto a Celtic musicale,
glossy lips of dandelions that speak
to me through you, whisking our laughter
on the run so mellow in autumn’s new eclipse.
Even when jewelled stars play-- between us
and them—our glides become faster,
that the world heaves with us,
open to love’s charm undefined by time...
how we spill into a hundred portraits
borne from an unrelenting joy which hours
or money cannot buy...then forgetting what
ancient tales have revealed : the heart with fiery
ardour causes brain damage...going, going, gone!
Looking up, I hear you whisper, “ Touch
any color you want,” as hues change from
apricot to orange. Yet before pointing to the sky,
bold moonlight hides, allowing us to defrock
warm kisses under her gently dark silhouette.
Album Tracks Tell Stories Contest
Sponsor: James Fraser
9/21/2015
Titles: Speak to Me/ Breathe, On the Run,
Time, The Great Gig in the Sky, Money,
Us and Them, Any Color You Like,
Brain Damage, Eclipse
When night casts shadows on the ground
The robin, distant, croons
Avian tones, enthralled by dreams
While stars glaze like festoons.
Ringlets of clouds, like puffs on flight
The silhouette of trees,
Nocturnal sighs and murmurings
Are caught up in the breeze.
Then, the new moon appears above
Her white face shyly peeps,
Light breaks so softly, glows the wings
As nest of duskfall sleeps.
Yet birdland rustles through the leaves
Jays trill on bush and thorn;
Where cardinal's imprints pass
Across the dappled lawn.
Soon these plumed wonders of the dark
Close down for daytime's rest,
To gather strength for next eve's rites
Unfolding at their best.
For The Birds Contest
Sponsor: Anthony Slausen
11/2/2015
Heaven’s Music
This music has wondrous cosmic tones
Beyond the range of all human hearing.
Sometimes as one enters the deepest sleep,
Angels may share hints of these tones
With some mortals chosen only by God.
At that true moment of holy ascension
Each soul crosses over into the light of
God’s world, and it’s that magic moment
When the souls begin hearing this music
And know their heavenly destiny’s at hand!
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
December 15, 2018 (Blank Verse)
What is the color of your skin?
Yellow as the radiance of the sun that yields
to the ticking drips of morning's climb ;
or black in the gentleness of a dusk
closing its light to render god and man
the sleep from trodden journeys?
Perhaps, white like cavorting waterfalls
tumbling into ripples of snowflakes, lips freezing
into icicles of wintry moon?
Is it brown likened to the very soil of a hearth
feeding our bones with of mounds of wheat?
Our complexion has nothing to do with
the universal language of freedom or inalienable
rights of oneness--the equal opportunity
given by life's behest. And yet, most
of humanity have a low tolerance
for people whose skin is colored like evening--
marginalized through chains of prejudice.
I weep and ask; i have no answer.
For Brian Strand's Premiere 125 Contest
Reposted 1/30/2018
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.
he tongue is our bank
To these ads and words we fathom
And this is what puts a man a sense of worth
And to the women a sense of rose
From the oratory we admire to the poetry we adore
Praise be our mother’s tongue that is our source
To raise our English that we purpose
Praise to our Lord Allah that is our force
It is him that gives us this strong
To this home and form we belong
But to this tongue once it goes wrong
And once it scorns what a human is born
To this character that you stroll upon
Do you know that once upon you be alone?
And that a day when you be scolded and you are gone
The ill you told, the bad feel you sold
And Hold your tongue Armageddon is just here
And be bold and don’t be so cold
The blackboard waited stark and bare
As yet, there was no teacher there
A striding vision, took the chalk
You know… I recognised that walk
Miss Malone’s Dulcet tones
Sent a shudder through my bones
Her flowing hair with blonde highlights
Her mini skirt and fishnet tights
The way she stood with feet spread wide
And the purpose in her stride
I gave my mate a little nudge
His loving gaze just wouldn’t budge
I said, “Forget your lurid thoughts,
We’re barely out of schoolboy shorts.”
He nodded at her crimson lips
The wiggle in her swaying hips
I said, “You’re fourteen, feeling flirty,
That there teacher’s nigh on thirty!”
He said, “I’ve heard her name is Maisie,
She makes me feel all oops-a-daisy”
I said, “She’s glam, that much is true,
But truly, she ain’t right for you.”
It seemed he thought me quite remiss
And so I had to tell him this,
“She seems quite able in her job
But last week, Miss Malone… was Bob!”
Wolfgang Mozart wolfed in haste,
A poetic sonata serene,
Harmonizing in good taste—
Finally finishing in canteen,
For a fix of caffeine.
Wolfgang Mozart makes no bones,
The audience not realizing,
He painted harmonic tones,
Spellbinding, yet not surprising,
Tunes so mesmerizing.
Shadows of an empty heart
seem to suffocate in the presence of happiness,
A happiness that will overpower the weakening sadness...
it's so familiar, yet so new.
Beauty in its best form forbidden to escape my heart,
but slowly the barier collapses, leaving only one thing left to say.
I want to speak the long awaited words;
but this phrase stays frozen in place;
the forbidden words go about unspoken...
and this emotion remaining fixed in its place..
always there, just unspoken.
vibrating echoes
fret sliding glass thrumming twang
pillow muted fade
The last embers of a sunset
sink below a dark horizon
almost mirroring a Rothko
painting in its somber
and weighted tones.
A sadness has found
a place to settle
for the evening
and is absorbed
by the water and sky.
It seems weary, unable
to take form in a thought
and be given a name,
but is more a shade
as that which inhabits
the internal landscape
of a haiku when something
fragile and exquisitely beautiful
is caught briefly in its passing
and let go.
It is a sadness that feels
soul deep, reverberates
in the ear beyond
any audible note
from a place that echoes
an emptiness,
the absence of what perhaps
first gave it breath
and let its fragile existence
float free and alone
to wash up on the shores
of this gentle evening
and utter a sigh.