Long Counterpoint Poems

Translation of Mahakavi Bharathiyar’s poem: “Asai Mugam” or “Beloved Face”
                         ...

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UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: L (50) - Tongue-Teasers

The « early bird catches the worm » only because the worm has not woken up yet.

« I don’t love you ! I hated your father ! » - must...

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She took some care making her choice
A Valentine's Day card
It is a silly little thing
"It shouldn't be this hard"

But she still feels indecision
Selecting the right one
To set the proper tone for them
"With just a touch...

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strife riven island corner, rough hewn by rival visitation
  vexed, looking in, looking out, on the edge of places to go
  thrang in thrall of other realms, banners furling, batons flung
  across...

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With feet rooted into the bones of the Earth,
the old man squatted on his heels and began his work.
He lifted his saw and placed it on top of a block of hardwood.
And then he began...

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1.
(Whispered; snapping percussion done by dry firing real guns)

Rock it
Shock it                        ...

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The letter of law condemned,
Let the Word enfleshed bring redemption,
My guide and I could now see,
Dancing curtains of luminescence,
As we started our ascent,
Climbing from perdition to penance,
This locus of light and shade,
Tells of hands that...

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He comes.
Graceful as the ghostly moonlight
glittering among the thorns,
he comes.
I feel him,
the warm whispers of the quiet forest listener.
He saunters, leans, and looks, 
approaches, crouches low.
I cannot let his deadly perfection come so close to...

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Polypaths
lead neuro-systemically back
to Mother/Child original wombed attachment

A remarkably warm
and wet counterpoint
to a sterile anthrosupremacist theory
of Original Separating Sin.

Instead,
in this organic preternatural 
panentheistic
spiritual experience
of win/win healthy wealth,
co-attachment overrides win/lose
zero-sum compromised
competitive relationships

Patriarchal
and capitalist self creationships
come later
as post-partum...

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Where once you stood

I glance across the room to where once you stood, 
busy with the evening meal, intent on the rhythms 
of preparation, glass of wine close at hand;
Barber’s haunting andante unfolds in my...

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ROHRBACH CAFE

Intimacy.

A place
of shared warmth, an atmosphere of muted shadows and candlelight,
where
emotions, profoundly sincere,
softly glow,
flare,
then wane
until, fully consumed, they are dimmed
and gentled
by intrinsic breezes of serenity.

A cafe
of quiet murmers, hushed revelations
among tables close,
but afar,
where
evening lit...

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Upon a time not so long ago
I saw these things, and locked them away,
As treasures in memory's secret stores:

A sunrise of Apocalyptic brilliance,
Clouds of opal strewn
Above a sapphire sea.

The white ruins of an ancient city,
Once...

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they crossed a wide savannah
and found the water’s edge
lashed wood with vine to find 
that laid beyond the horizon - 
that is what they wanted

they shored upon novel rock
came across new forage
and animals - and...

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they crossed a wide savannah
and found the water’s edge
lashed wood with vine to find 
that laid beyond the horizon - 
that is what they wanted

they shored upon novel rock
came across new forage
and animals - and...

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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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Love's Symphonic Passion
                                by...

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A Nightcliff Evening

The pastel light of evening fades to the indigo of night,
Trees brooding silhouettes above, save where the string
Of lights picks out the furrows of pale trunks and
Thrusting limbs. 

“42; pizza” rings out in...

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Late spring  
	and the opening gasps 
	of summer’s blazing promise 
	bring whirling dark clouds, 
	horizontal rain, 
	fierce weather, 
	warning horns, 
	my blackness, 
	horizontality, 
	downright mean melancholy,
	and warning signs
	worthy of attention.

	I much prefer lazy storms...

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In chambers filled with laughter, light, and carefree sound,
A discordant echo hangs, heavy and unbound.
A specter in the corner, draped in deep shadows,
A chilling truth the merry words refuse to keep.

The body lies unseen, a...

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It is the scent of you, that breathes in me.
It is the music when you laugh
that chants across the apse
between our heartwalls,
signaling desire, tossing off forever
thoughts of penitence and shame.
It is the holiday of you
that...

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I am absolutely disoriented while I wait.
I am unable to reclaim the time I have lost.
I was entirely sure of my counterpoint.
Being warned led to her bewildered epithet. 

Something odd is going on in this...

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Is this all?

Life is a country, spread before us at birth, its
Vistas stretching beyond the horizon, full of 
Mystery and anticipation. 

In the distance lie mountain ranges, 
Tall peaks of passion; this one the mother...

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Rise slowly from eastward, O western setting sun! Blaze
                     Anew!  Get up, swell the...

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My thoughts reflect
upon the hour glass,
and knowing with the bottom mostly full
and darkness closer by,
the thing I was supposed to do
is undefined, retreating
in the now descending dusk,
a most sardonic eulogy, indeed,

There is a cadence beating
as...

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As Samuel saw vaulted Xanadu of Kublai Khan fame
In smoke-filled corridors of sweat-drenched Opium-eaters
Did I spy a vision so surreal as to render all my sentient senses to nought
And to replace them with a miasma...

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