Counterpoint Poems | Examples

The hostages are human'

Its a reggresive sight to see the condition of hostages
Being released by hamas?? Its a sad counterpoint to the
Whole sad situation.' And gnaws away at hope of there
Being any good solution, any way to sanity..For barbarisam will
But destroy all souls that employ it.' Enough.!! Time to
Consider on our humanity surely' and the positives it can
Facilitate.'

First Time

Two people on the beach in Malibu
gazed at the ocean linking their two lands.
One of them was me.  One of them was you.
To a drumbeat, deep, we were joining hands.  

The waves and the rhythm of our young hearts
kept time to a flowering melody,
punctuated by cautious stops and starts,
lovely point and counterpoint by the sea. 

A tasty dinner, Ye Olde King's Head,
then home, as I recall (though old and grey),
how on this journey, you were gently led, 
as we found heartfelt treasures on our way.  

It was like a gift given from above.
Your first time was when I first fell in love.

The Cynicism Trap - Counterpoint Tree

The Cynicism Trap
apathetic  engaged
withdrawn  open, free
distrusting  entrusting
pessimistic feeling  hopeful in outlook
always expects failure ahead  strives onward for success
skeptic about the future to come  altruistic in hope for the future
selfishness, deceitful, dishonest  truthful, honest, cooperative 
emotionally detached, withdrawn  engaged, committed, sharing
gives up easily, becomes inactive  resilient, determined to stay on
alone, stifling creativity and connections  encourages partnerships, joint efforts

From Here

From here
I can see the morning ferry
pull out from the wharf
trailing its long tail 
of noisy seagulls, a churning
wake catching the sunlight
before healing to a calm.
I too would like to be healed,
to feel that quietening 
when resistance is laid down
and repair comes with a still.

It would be good to be
at ease with what is,
to be transparent and not impede
the course of light, to trust
and be at one with a drift
towards the unknown. 
Not to push against
the turbid swell of an incoming 
tide but to remain motionless
within it and ride its lift.

From here
I can see the trees along
the foreshore quiver in the slight
breath of a breeze.
Things happen.
From here I sense
an incomprehensible still
across which the morning moves
in a vast pantomime.
To be still is to let go
of all that is passing.



Note.
This poem is a counterpoint to
the previous poem “Yesterday”
which treats stillness in largely
negative terms. Here the idea
of stillness is seen as a means
to transcendence and a central
attribute of Being.

-MUSICISTA- II

concentrated
        richness
           of
              sound
to
educate
    the
      ear
to
sustained
    attention
of
strands
  of counterpoint

self-discovery
by
    a sense
           of
              experence
to
arouse
   the body
& mind
in
a collective
                  engagement

Who sticks closer than blood is friend

A friend that fishes for his selfish good, 
He who flatters and placates but to please, 
His sweet words venom under a veiled hood, 
He, whose hiss disguises as pleasant breeze. 
One not found when his friend’s lost in a wood, 
Who deserts ship in need of renewed lease. 

There too are friends like a pair of spare hands— 
Friends that back up in times of utter strain,  
In tricky turns of fate stick together, 
And stretch a helping hand, pleasure or pain, 
Whose counsel’s harsh but works like smooth feather,
Whose words pain, pierce like knife, prove sane. 

Friends come in all shades of a rainbow band, 
Yet, he that sticks closer than blood is friend. 
___________________________________________ 
Sonnets | 05.03.2004| friend
Poet’s note: An atypical sonnet with two sestets posing a premise and a counterpoint, ending with a couplet.

Silence Blesses Us - a Pantoum

silence blesses us 

life is not a quiet experience
ever the friendship of heartbeat
the rush of blood in our veins
and the din of the blustering world

heartbeat ever our friend
it measures out our days
the din of the blustering world
counterpoint, inner and outer

heartbeat measures our days
we must turn inside for silence
counterpoint of outer and inner
it is under, beneath, and prior

turn inside for true silence
trust the big field and rest there
it is under, beneath, and prior
never touched nor seen nor heard

trust the big field and rest there
solace for our broken, sick world
you can’t touch it but you can be it
rest in the silence that blesses

life is not a quiet experience
the rush of blood in our veins

Cloud Music

A restless sky becomes
a high operatic act,
a bright stratosphere
stage lights that performance art.
Then there is the counterpoint
of a calm cloudiness,
slow variations
writing airy, occasional music.

Clouds scud and billow,
a nymphic dance
dressed to mesmerize.
The misty nebular is symphonic,
always beginning
always unfinished.
Rhythmic movements
that are joined
to the beat of your heart.

When you gaze through
that first window of light,
when you raise your spiritual baton
in that open air concert
you are both
the music and the audience.

A Hot July In the Texas Hill Country

Across the valley, salted with the distant sands of the Sahara, I hear the raucous song of summer’s cicadas. As a counterpoint, dry Texas mesquite trees offer a sullen crack like old men requiring their Club Soda with lemon to clear their throat, burning with age. The sun, so often serenaded for its pink bloom of morning, it’s golden orb at noon and fiery red at sunset, today, in mid-July, does not move. My shadow, so reliably robust by late afternoon, deeply engraved on the stones and grasses of the Hill country, is so pale in this terrible light, that I begin to doubt my existence. And what if that existence was in doubt?
   
   A wasp looping, dipping in a slim glaze of water
   Brown leaves hanging loosely from branches
   like the hot tongues of ranch dogs.
   Lone Star flags rustle on their poles. 
   Lemonade glasses perspire.
                         The wasp in the birdbath loops,
                         dips, sips and dies.

Harmonious

Harmonious is not a horrid homogenized concoction,
pulsed and blitzed in a blender mixer,
until the notes and flavors meld and gel set.
Instead it is a polyphonic pitch ensemble,
a juxtaposition of notes in counterpoint.
Chords, sounds, glissando's and voices
all intermingle as individuals,
balancing consonance and dissonance
in harmony.

When your world goes way out of tune,
discordant in cacophony,
clanging with noisy chaotic strife!
Get your harpsichord re-tuned afresh,
to sound notes of love, true blue, not bluesy bent.
Then your soul can be harmonious again
in rhythmic syncopating jam sessions,
adlibbing with your soul mates,
in a potpourri of flavors, savored
harmonious.

Unspoken

Come sit down next to me dear
I have some Bach for you to hear
I've practiced it for days and weeks
A romance of Baroque techniques

I chose this piece because I knew
That through it I could speak to you
And without words convey my heart
A complete thought, the sum of parts

It's melodies are short and sweet
With counterpoint the two lines meet
And then in one unbroken string 
Of love notes, they say everything

Through the Looking Glass

The city hung upside down,
an almost perfect copy,
unblemished by any movement 
on the water that set a glaze upon 
the morning. Later, I saw ferns 
and a red bromelia caught
in the still of a backyard pond
and in the clearest counterfeit 
of all, me passing across a mirror 
in a florist's window before
disappearing somewhere 
beyond its gilded frame.

As a child, head stuck
halfway through the looking glass 
of a book, I longed to push 
through into that reflected world.
It was there, I thought, I existed
in counterpoint, having all 
that troubled me reversed 
into the opposite.
My real home was
on the other side, not here,
crossing a boundary 
that should never have been 
crossed, fallen through a crack
in a dream, lost,
with no way back.


Note.
Title taken from Lewis Carroll's 
" Through the Looking Glass "

Visions

life is exactly
the counterpoint that
we imagine it is...
  Wonderful and intense..
  The eyes and the glasses
humans are the ones who don't
discern well...

The City

The river 
still finds its brown way
through the city's glass 
and concrete canyons
until finally reaching 
the bay. Its tidal breath
has become my own. 
I live near its mouth.

I was not born here
but have spent more 
than half my life
a citizen of its urban sprawl. 
The roots I've sunk 
hang off a sense of home. 
There is an ease
in living here where the old
and the new, the familiar
and strange exist 
in counterpoint and house
the needs of the gregarious 
and the chafed nerves
of the recluse. Cafes
serve good coffee. 

In the shadows
of apartment towers,
old men can shuffle easily
down the gentle slope 
of asphalt paths,
carrying words or a rod
and sit quietly 
at the water's edge
with their thoughts,
fishing for bream or God.

Remember, O Vicissitudes of Life

On prying on my mind much as ye can, 
Ye make me ponder what gives me deep tan, 
Shape, sharpen me, goad me to grow as man, 

   Ye trim down rough contours of my raw edge, 
   Help me add life, not just years to my age, 
   Carve wrinkles of wisdom on my visage 

As cyclic spirals show in a tree trunk. 
Ye ensure, lessons of lifetime have sunk 
In, that I walk not like a hollow hunk. 

   O forget not still, never once man is 
   A mute witness of his circumstances 
   That he faces, not bow to on bent knees,

So how he gets to be his own master,
Phoenix-like who rises from disaster.
_________________________________________ 
Sonnets | 05.02.2007, revised Jan 2023 | 

Poet’s note:  An atypical sonnet consisting of four three-line tercets and a couplet. The first three (nine lines) present the point, the fourth making sonnet’s counterpoint together with the sonnet-ending couplet.

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