Long Arpeggios Poems

In the depths of nothingness, my love, a flower sprung from snows,
I dreamed of you as a splendor, an undying fire in the night, an eternal promise of beginning,
An ode in the whiteness that migrates,...

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In the heart of the night, next to the unmoved clock,
She lies, with the pillow—a saline lake of pagan scents,
Mourning something that was never spoken.
Prisoner in the castle of shadows, where darkness
Bearer of chaos, stretches...

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He plays jazz as if he invented it
Arpeggios augmented, minored and majored
Transferring from one chord to another
Like flashes of lightning extracting emotional pearls 
all from from such a young mind

One marvels how and from where...

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Can We “Feel” Music?
By Carol Geyer


Can we “feel” music? Can the notes cool or warm us?
Soothing like green aloe balm, or warm as flaming Yule logs,
 or as majestic as a fully leafed oak?
 ...

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EARLY POEMS XXI - JUVENILIA

Dance With Me
by Michael R. Burch

(circa age 18)

Dance with me
to the fiddles’ plaintive harmonies.
Enchantingly,
each highstrung string,
each yearning key,
each a thread within the threnody,
bids us, "Waltz!"
then sets us free
to wander, dancing aimlessly.

Let...

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Thrill knowledge with the desire to spread 
Ideals across heads like grains of sand
Sprinkle little rays of brightness
Into cups full of vanilla ice-cream
If the sun doesn’t sparkle
Then there is no one to blame
But one’s own...

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Musicianship 
(3 May 2014;  For my son Steven, an ACCOMPLISHED guitarist)

Real musicianship can truly drive you nuts—
There really are no “ifs”, “ands”, or “buts”.
Practice, study, memorize, then more practice--
Is this just an obsession or...

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She’s rolled up with patience
dedication and faith in the Lord;
her strictness punctuated a shared vision
that focused on learning acquisition.

  Her punctuality, precision, and determination
  to teach her pupils with discipline and right focusing;
...

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Pedal Tones and arpeggios, and registers. 
"the act of separating the Two"
   The Twenty One Day Rule
By Professor Meanus Labyrinth
        "Gabba Gabba Hey" 
 Code name...

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Soundscape Strata

Did Bach know to what end
his harvest of melodies-in-parallel would become?

Scholars agonize

Was creation of counterpoint
musical destiny
a hybrid fruit of beauty
knowing no boundary
bewildering those of first look
given musical staffs
voicings and manuscripts
always conformed to traditional confinement?

What...

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Bloody, bloody Ezra Pound
I never got my head around
his magnum opus: The Cantos
I’ve tried so hard but goodness knows
he didn’t intend it to be easy
for me or his mate Mussolini.

Perhaps obscurantism was his policy
or perhaps...

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The humid air, Subic Bay's soft sigh,
Seventies' sun beneath a turquoise sky.
Within those walls where laughter used to ring,
My young heart found where melodies could spring.

The polished backs of bandurrias gleamed,
A constellation where our fingers...

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An old preacher named Ned
Got it into his head
To make a musical pilgrimage
Before he was dead.
He claimed divine inspiration
To form a band and tour the nation,
And by so doing treat its ills,
Not with welfare checks...

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Come cover me with taffeta blue and and my cello's hue
and let the warmth rub onto you
when they join the cotton of my handkerchief
Nature's discards in their pure state are put to good use

I love...

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I hear the music calling me
From the smooth and shiny rows of keys
The ebony and ivory
And all the melodies between
‘Come!’ it says, ‘And play a song
Upon your fingertips I’ll canter along.
Befriend the scales—arpeggios
Follow the tune...

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Another morn
The same but different
First notes, forlorn
Scales, arpeggios drift
In mundane form
Music yet unborn
Repetition of hopes
Dreams remembrance
Escape my horn
Unbound free
The same but different

Another time
Of yesterdays  todays
Tomorrows
The same but different
Like life
Like death
The one we know
The other...

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Hobgoblin in the gutter under canopy of midnight, 
magic brew of muti without rein.
Shadow figure torchon, darting half-light dare.
Spine chilling droplets wobble slowly down drains,
rusty copper mouthwash at the edge of jagged chutes. 
Eerie urban...

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There are so many things I am mad about.
Take sunrise with red clouds and soft rays
Penetrating through the water-laden clouds.
Rain is imminent, thunder threatening afar.
It matters not, for I love to stay cosy indoors.

Soon, it...

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It was just another ordinary day
Scattered notes are all over the place
Drums trying to maintain a certain beat
Guitars either strumming or singing 

Violins studying their scales and arpeggios
The piano pouring out its player’s soul 
Clarinets...

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Hours after hours of practice
Making sounds that are polished pearls 
Connected by a thin string made up of
Accelerando, arpeggios, and articulation
O, what wonderful colours you have!
Measures after measures of music
Playing with deep emotions that flow
Sometimes,...

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Mist of Moonlight Fantasy

Ludwig~
Shimmering waves of arching arpeggios

Grace the first moments

Of your moonlight child;

Mysterious conception
Hidden in fleeting legends 
Of a composition enraptured by blindness
Or love
Mystical as white shadows
On ebony
Dripping with dedication
Or sheer clouds that veil...

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Have I ever forgotten
the ocean in your eyes?
Blue waves,
your soft determined
touch 
has delicately,
beautifully,
turned time
into arpeggios. 
Allusive Allen, as I call him
reclusive and exclusive,
a man who speaks to
few.  A man so
true. 
The only man I...

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The wind,
a poetry brushing
my skin.
Ferns painting
ankles
in cool dew
on a hiker’s trek.

The stars,
arranged or
understood as
arranged...
a song not
yet forgot.
An arrangement of
notes, of diacriticals,
of arpeggios,
awaiting the blushing
washout.

My arms, open to
the lovely dark,
the smokily smudged
pre-dawn...
Tea vapours’ tendrily 
hand caresses...

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Clair de Lune 
such a lovely tune.
I knew that this was the piece I would play in my concert.
A perfect ending such as a delicious dessert.
My fingers floated across the piano keys.
Knowing that this song...

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I named her Felicity.
Don't know why
All babies look the same to me.
Yet she grew up into a lively girl,
so well accomplished.
She learned the piano all by herself.
How I delighted to hear her lento 
and arpeggios....

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