The Italian language
I would like to immigrate from Portugal to Italy
After ten o'clock at night, I switch on the TV
and watch an Italian soap opera
I don't understand a word of what the actors
say, but it is the way they say it, no hard
Consonant, no one is asked to stand to attention
For a comma, a full stop is a mere bagatelle
Not understanding what actors say is not
important, it is about facial expression and screams
So many pleasant surprises, last night's program
about a man who looked scruffy, he looked like
an evil character, but as it turned out, he is a police
inspector and arrested the man who looked like
matinee idol for the murder of the girl
All this happened in a modulated language where
crass consonants, dare not enter
beneath the boughs of meter's grace
a whispered rhythm finds its place
each word a spark a fleeting flame
a whispered echo of beauty’s name
rhyme steps lightly hand in hand
with time it weaves a golden strand
it dances in couplets bold and free
binding thought to melody
imagery blooms in the poet's mind
painting worlds both fierce and kind
a rose that bleeds a moon that sighs
the aching truth in lovers’ lies
meter marches steady and strong
the heartbeat of the poet's song
a drumbeat soft a thunderous roar
opening doors to worlds of lore
alliteration hums a gentle breeze
whispering secrets through the trees
consonants clash vowels sigh
crafting harmony low and high
yet free verse too a rebel's prose
finds beauty where the wild wind blows
unbound by rules yet tethered still
to passion's fire to the poet's will
the hallmarks shine a timeless art
a mirror held to the human heart
from sonnet's form to ballad’s sway
the soul of the poet leads the way
I am but a poet.
A rhyming cavalier
Expressing words I'm thinking
Until my mind is clear
Counting all the syllables
The consonants and the nouns
Letting my emotions run freely
Through villages and towns
I am but a poet.
The words that I create
Are written with a passion
So others can relate
They fill the head with magic
Bring laughs and tears alike
Expressing all your feelings
When stood up on an open mic
I am but a poet.
Not Shakespeare, if you please.
Sonnets are not my forte
Odes not my expertise
I am a free thinker
Scribing poems to make you think
Of nature and our planet
Putting my frustrations down in ink
I am but a poet.
With each sentence that I write
Are pieces of my being
My emotions in plain sight
Building up a picture
Where my thoughts are at
Filling empty pages
With every this and that
I am but a poet.
My words float on the air
Flying to its suitor
With each stanza that I share
Bringing a different feeling
To each and every soul
I am but a poet
And rhyming is my goal
©? Andrew Mears 2024
Did you go
to the gym
the Poet asked
Or just write
weakened
the verse untasked
The vowels and
consonants
stay unflexed
With words
atrophic
— their muscles vexed
(The New Room: December, 2024)
I know you are sensitive,
not sentimental,
but it has been four years,
that's one thousand
four hundred and sixty one days,
since enlightened tides kissed
those island shores.
My soul was wrapped in worn ribbons,
mourning my misplaced muse
and you were a whispering rose,
wilting at the slightest touch.
Bleeding 3am vents,
with conflicting vowels and consonants,
the sirens of your ink screamed
for a silent troubadour to
compose cathartic bloodstreams -
but life is not as pretty as petals and poetry.
A mistress to moonlight,
I found you crying at an apathetic moon,
so I cracked open your volcanic cocoon,
to open your eyes to cinnamon
and persimmon horizons -
now you float like an empyrean butterfly.
I hope you soar forever and know
I could have written for you,
as many verses as you have seen stars,
but we cannot cultivate in fields of unfairness,
where only dead blooms now decompose,
as you keep ignoring Cupid's cries.
Despite contradicting crossroads,
my heart is deep rooted
in wayfarer's wisdom,
knowing when there are no more beats -
you will honour me with a
requiem for an artist.
Simple Musings
Words made up with their letters
Of consonants and vowels.
Paragraphs from sentences
Which serve as verbal bowels.
All letters from A to Z
Play an important role
Every time we read and write...
Each one has a goal.
Numbers used when we decide
That we would rather count.
They are used in many ways
To come to an amount.
Use a calculator when
An answer may seem far.
Letters and numbers together,
You have algebra.
When the alphabet is soup
Inside a bowl for you,
What was 26 instead
Can become 62.
Why does the world feel like an oxymoron?
They say world is simple yet a marathon!
They say don't ever give up come on!
Yet many of the people just forgone.
Why do my statements feel paradoxical?
I love to imagine yet words come real.
I believe in the phrase, think before you speak
Still, I find melodious words playing hide and seek.
Why do my experiences feel like a repetition,
Instead of consonants the shortcomings form alliteration.
Why does it feel true if it is just hallucination?
Thinking if it has already happened causes perplexion.
Why do I find myself as a transferred epithet?
Am I cheerful person, or it is just my dopamine?
Am I a lil insighted or it is just my mind?
What I wonder most is what the heck is 'I'??
Why does my life feel personified?
The passion here whispers and the time flies...
When alone, the silence knocks while the nostalgia mocks,
And then my mind and heart have a nice talk!
My plate is always piled
yet my fork has nothing on it,
beamed up by sensory overload
onto a different culinary planet.
Please don’t think me rude
for leaving most of each meal,
it’s simply an agreement I made
with my devil, a self-imposed deal.
My fridge may look full
though recipes are few,
at least I know how to mix vowels
and consonants into a syllable stew.
This is an empty shame,
a hollow unrisen bun:
I’m male, I’m white, I’m educated,
so surely this cake should be done.
A deprivation tank which I worry
echoes an expected gay cliché;
“No, I’ve already eaten, I’ll snack later.
I’m not feeling well, sorry I can’t stay.”
Twenty years of hunger and binge
now seem to live inside my skin,
the pain a physical invisible
late fee payment for thin.
My bowl is always full, but my spoon has no story to be told.
My body is a restaurant chain business, finally ready to fold.
Imagine if a couplet traveled the world,
gaining an accent before moving on;
Repositioned from front to back twirled;
An old rhyme harnessed and hurled,
finding a backboard to bounce upon;
Imagine if a couplet traveled the world;
Tangled consonants mixed up and swirled,
still holding it down prose's guardian;
Repositioned from front to back twirled;
Keeping every dialect preserved,
poetry similar to an antique globe drawn;
Imagine if a couplet traveled the world;
A delicate font lands retro curled,
crown jewel of a poetic paragon;
Repositioned from front to back twirled;
The trajectory of a vowel furled,
so cultured this loquacious phenomenon;
Imagine if a couplet traveled the world,
repositioned from front to back twirled.
RECITATISTA part 1
an act of enunciatiion
its suggestiveness
flexible
expressive
& voices
of voluptuous
intonation
of thinking
deepened
in dramatic
reflection
of acquaintance
to
in a
series
of vocal harmonies
listen hear
sans distraction –
vowels consonants
without
punctuation
the
stanza
cadence-shaped
encountered
an absorption
of spelling
&arrangements
pace
with gaps
enjambed
& irony
in
such
happenings
makes
for variety
as whispers
the element
in which
conceived
interposing
anew
punctuation walks
on eggshells
when
words like
water
falls
flow into nothingness,
soaked in syrupy syllables
behind veiled vowels
assonance is the twin of
consonance as
a e i o u
are an
unfinished bridge
without connection
of consonants
weaved together
in visible
unspoken actions
woven without words
just like rhythmic meter
of thunder with lightning
like a lost refrain in a poem
assembled with enjambment
metaphorical reflections of a
reflective metaphor portray a
m i r a g e less sincere than silence
value blossoms
when the body adopts
a gospel language
where speech
is unnecessary
unless expressed
through true
dialects of conduct
without the use of
lyrical accessories.
No words completely rhyme with orange:
no orange fringe, no orange hinge,
no lozenge, no syringe, no twinge, no whinge – no nothing!
No words completely rhyme with orange.
Porridge isn’t orange; but, there is an Orange Province.
An orange stoppage - should be red!
Incorrigible orange!
The rhymes I’ve tried are negligible, barely sensible.
Horrid orange!
Purple is no better.
There are purple turtles, slurping, burping,
and purple pebbles, purple burbles:
all sorts of purply, chirpy, twerpy sounds,
but, no words rhyme with purple.
Silver is another colour which hasn’t got a twinning brother.
There are silver rivers, silver shivers, silver slivers, silver sisters;
but, there are no silver dilver milver pilvers,
and if there were, they’d smell like fish.
I actually prefer the almost-chimes of assonance,
the vowels that that twine with consonants,
without the over-confidence of lar-dee-dar-dee rhymes.
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” Rumi
Life can be an incomplete glossary,
speech a haunting ghost,
in search of a perspicuous poem -
to express unspoken thoughts.
I remember when she said,
"Cue me poetry"
So, I became her perpetual poet,
engraving sweet soulful words
upon her bitter spiritless lips.
Fate had turned her into the Queen of Darkness,
but my heart glows in the dark.
Together we illuminated like a trillion twinkling stars,
outshining the enigmatic effervescent moon.
Her essence infused a refreshing presence,
like morning sunshine after a night of rain.
Slowly she became a pilgrim of my poetry,
and I, a sojourner lost within her soul.
As I wandered through her secret chapters,
my word weaving revealed her book of scars,
each drop of ink resembling her tepid tears.
Each vexatious verse purified through
a catalyst of catharsis, healed her wounds.
We are like quill and scribe,
vowels complimenting consonants,
completing an impeccable vocabulary -
without her there is no muse.
I want to write something grand
I want to catch some fireflies
Without applauses or a band
Cage words in a jar for eyes
Consonants make a light show
String them with floating vowels
Words imprison djins, you know
Don't you dare throw in the towel
Every day fireflies search for me
Even in November when it's cold
They like words want me to see
I can't without wine and be bold
Are fireflies for a show and tell?
Woolfs without a howling pack
Damned insects are caught pell mell
Glowing words buzz in my sack
To feel crows captured by Gogh
I want God to say well done
Anything but Him saying, So?
Chasing fireflies should be fun
I coax myself onto the stage
The greats did it, why can't I?
Without claps, they fill the page
They lift a glass for fireflies to lie
Vowels in a jar should be grand
But, I've lost how to be a child
Delighted only by God's band
I suffocate fireflies ever wild
Love is the stream as it begins
As spring, pouring from hills’ side,
Floods in its pale path, winds under
Sharp-cut banks, love tells
In consonants its later song, flows
Truest as all true love drives,
Where time demands a time
For singing, love revives and quells
In promises beneath shade trees,
So it slows, considering next moves,
Wanders, affection without haste,
Ages into river, gently,
Believing in its calm to come,
Tranquil, tranquil, free moving at idle
Pace, not losing its identity,
This love is ours: We are the sea.
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