Dissonant Poems | Examples

List of Member Poems

Sycamore, Swing

Sycamore tree, swing thee far?
On a crescent line?
Yes, sir. As I strive for par:
I think of the vine.

Due, friend, to its supple reach?
Twist and turn a-right.
Spark within me, I beseech.
Flicker, fly, and fight.

Well, young man, mythology.
Legends of the old?
Ancient is the redwood? Sea.
Lava makes the gold.

Sword, point heavenward and stand.
Enforce hell's command.
Fear severe, have you been planned?
Fire, forms frequent fanned?

Doubt, without? Tough taut to tout?
Down the waterspout.
Lily pad, repair or rout?
Flagrantly to flout.

Yet organized the strong ones step.
Each in rhythmic racks.
Soldier, load thy gun with pep.
Notes hang up with tacks.

City bells, alarums.
What message will you ring?
Plume volcanic, ply thy plums.
Blister as ye bring.

Crumbs. Chaos, thy star dances.
Dissonant its flow.
Fate and Fortune, white chances.
Black the broken bow.

Apoptosis

Definition: programmed cell death/cellular suicide
                   in an attempt to remedy damaged components,
                   neatly shrinking and dismantling damaged parts. 

A cognitive dissonant conscious
exists at a crossroads. 
My mind fractures at the mere thought
of going back into the closet of deferred romantic pursuits,
even if hiding can ensure survival.
My dilemma encapsulates the quintessential concept of coming out. 
Taking a step out of closeted comfortability
opens up the avenue for external toxicity, 
while retreating into latent potential is 
unintentional self-immolation.

Premium Member Abolish With Polish

Said the caste abolitionist
to the privileged preservationist

What Earth needs outside
we both feel inside

What people want inside
fills and spills outside

Following polycultural
polypathic
polyamorous
polytheistic Golden Rules
Ways
Means
Golden Ratios.

Caste abolition, 
like anthropocentric constraint,
and unlike narcissistic complaint,
engages transformative potential
to recreate an organic civilization
in which every sacred body
has what is needed
and every polyamorous mind
has what is wanted.

Every neurological system
well-trained
and peace-making empowered
to recognize
and responsibly self-correct
any dissociative dissonant differences
between body nurturing needs
for kind touch
and mind-care wants
for compassionate communication

Spoken
and unspoken,
saged
and mused,
crowned
and rooted,
mountained
and valleyed
FatherSunned
and EarthMothered,
LeftBrained
and RightBodied,
enlightened
and empowering,
polished Win+Win
and abolished Win v Lose.


Premium Member EXPECTANT THRESHOLDS

EXPECTANT THRESHOLDS
suddenly 
 conscious 
of
  perceived
    patterned
memorials
beginning 
to
  crystallised
in
 strange 
  experiences 
reflecting
the
uncertain


mixed
tense
 activity
   indicates
transparent 
  unearthly
anticipates
awareness
   immediately
surrounding
  shadows
    creeping
pictorial
 spheres
   veiled
     unmoving
dissonant 
transitory 
fragments

Premium Member Interrupted Muse

A cacophony of sound surrounds me,
As dissonant music blares into my mind.
I sit in front of my computer
to type away my latest poem.

"Are these your dirty shoes, dear?
We have a rack for them, you know."

"Why is our towel soiled, dear?
Were you fiddling with your car?"

Whining and carping, objecting and wailing.

Oh, for a precious moment of silence,
That I might be alone 
That I may be allowed to concentrate
On my tenuous inspiration
Before it dissipates 
Into its normal useless insubstantiality!
Gone is my poem, like a frightened bird.

Premium Member My souls on display

My souls on display, judgment comes
after
Held by melodies and dissonant chapters
Do you like dark romance? 'Cause I bring
disaster

Do you see greed? Is it my scene? Or the need to be seen through it?

Believe me, I wish I could believe this fate
befalls us all
I hope that peace is sewn within my fall
So I might find the wings to fly taller

And if I can beg you for one last thing, that gives chase for us to be held tight

If we're lost beyond the edge of light
Know you were my trail of stars in sight
To not find in fear that I've let its voice
become our night


Premium Member AUTUMN'S SYMPHONY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A pumpkin-colored sun filled the autumn air, casting bright rays that warmed the vibrant red-gold leaves. What would the red-gold leaves be without this blessed light? And the autumn breeze? It came as a symphony, filled with warm love notes from the summer days gone by.

October's brisk wind
dissonant wind chimes blowing
autumn's symphony

Premium Member AUTUMNAL BLISS--Seasonal Crystalline Poem

AUTUMNAL BLISS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
autumn's winds, a playful caress
dissonant wind chimes dance in artful bliss

Premium Member On A Rainy Evening in The City


Your ear has to be
tuned to hear 
the City's rhythms  
buried below the noise
and be able to discern 
a melody woven through
the dissonant chatter
as in the rumble and splash 
of motorcar tyres moving 
along streets slicked 
with watery reflections
and in the jarring grind
of tram wheels,
screeching brakes 
and warning bells
and in the cadence
of human voices 
as heard in quiet 
conversations and loud 
yells - to feel
a sense of elation when 
all the scattered notes 
of a City come together  
and you hear
its surprising song.

Premium Member Life

Life

Why follow? Don’t need. Lives the death
Be walking. Dark woods. Free life. Feeling

Don’t love. Do not love. This is just a mistake
Dark light. No harmony. This life is dissonant

Just a hell. Rainbow. Night-blindness. A hell
Loving. Unrecognised. Unknown love. A tear

Just water. Steam. Life stream. River in Wood
Unloved. Changed. Flow. Glittering. Silver brook
Ice

Dropped life. Missed. Buried life. My garden
Silent cemetery. Empty my soul. I hear my echo

No life. Alone. Suffered
No emotion. Cold. This life

Premium Member Give me the Rhythm

Oh! Guitar, what music hides in thy heart,
That awaits the touch of my soft fingers.
As my digit ends move over thee in quiet,
What melody comes, how it my spirit triggers!

Every chord in thee is fastened so tight.
If one is loose, the notes run dissonant.
With thy rhythm n’ melody, thou hold my heart light.
Wonder what sprite hides in this instrument. 

As I listen to thy finely tuned sounds,
How I am kept long suspended in time.
To what heights then my wearied soul rebounds,
 Making me afloat in celestial rhyme.

Oh music, flood in me to drown my pain.
Can anyone on earth your healing power disdain?

Premium Member Dissonance a Forked Tongue in Cheek

You sound like a fingernail
dragged over a blackboard.
Every word cast as blackmail
from a forked tongue in cheek.
Bathed in the vile, bile of diatribe,
masticated to be flung as dung expelled.
Your snarled words reek with 
the dissonant cadence of discordance.
As your eyes flicker
from side to side with lies,
you look away, unable 
to face me, eye to eye,
unmasked,
unshielded,
nakedly exposed,
in tune tonality,
truthful.

Fire of Anxiety

I watched every twig, every stick,
carefully placed -
I watched

Every branch left its mark,
playing its part like a symphony—
melodies whispering notes of peace,
while harmonies voice the dissonant echoes of war--

So subtle

I watched
Every limb
dividing, thriving
slowly depriving every ounce of oxygen
from the air it never once tasted,
but now hoards mouthfuls as its own.

The period of starvation ends.
It calls, a sudden, about-face.
Melodies of peace and harmonies of war converge.
The time of devouring has come.

Sounds once calming,
lullabies laced with steel—
lulling into hypnotic despair--
disguised as knights in shinning armor
now set a fire. 
 
And I burn

I watched my wooden death bed crafted
by my own hands. 

The question remains

Will I continue to burn?
Or will I rise with the phoenix from the ashes?

Went for a Walk

I went for a walk today
But really walking's how I pray
I prayed to God up above
For him to show me how to love
I think I may have done it wrong 
Not just this time but all along

You see....,

"Love is precocious and innocent
Not self-righteous and dissonant
Love is acceptance and compromise 
Not a tool with which to ostracize
Love is boundless and abundant
Not binding and reductant
Love is careful and yet fearless
Never easy and never tearless
Love is blindly unassuming 
Never wilted,endless blooming
Love is allowing and imprecise 
Love is selflessness and sacrifice
Love is reckless and it's stupid 
Not flowers and candy or even cupid
What makes love love is it's simplicity 
We were made to know how to love implicitly
Love is messy and less than perfect
But let me tell you love is worth it
Give me back this sacred gift,this innate ability 
Either let me love or please set me free"

So despite the anguish and trials I might face
This is what I pray for as I walk in your grace....

"If by love I am defeated each and every day
Please Lord let me wake each next one choosing love still anyway."

Premium Member Yin, Yang, Big Bang

  Where my yin meets my yang
    I hear a dissonant clang

  My physician traced it back 
    all the way to the ‘Big Bang’

  Seems I hopped aboard an asteroid
    went for a wild ride

  Hit my head on a comet
    blasphemed, ‘God damn it!’

Sub Categories

Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

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