Long Quartets Poems

Long Quartets Poems. Below are the most popular long Quartets by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Quartets poems by poem length and keyword.


Premium Member The Morning of the Hurricanes Part 2

 Continued from Part 1 

The Beggars ’neath the balustrades,
and broken Children, Chambermaids,
are running wild from wraiths, afraid
	of dreams where death redoubles.
They fritter time with tattered threads
(from ragged clothes they’ve left in shreds),
crocheting hoods to hide their heads
	and faces, full of rubble.
But many things will not remain
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
when goblets filled with cool champagne
	evaporate in bubbles.

The White-Robed Maid adorns the trash
with charnel urns awash in ash,
then fumbles with an untied sash
	while pacing in the Palace.
Her hopes congeal in coffee spoons
with memories adrift in dunes;
yet, still she smiles with teeth like prunes
	and lips of painted callus.
And long before the midnight drains,
the Saviour wakes, the Loser gains,
the waters of the Hurricanes
	will fill her empty chalice.

The storm (behind the clarinets,
the silver flutes, the castanets,
the foghorns belching in quartets,
            the bagpipes, puffed and swollen)
is keeping time to tambourines
while Tom Thumb and the Four-Inch Queen,
pick up the shards and smithereens
            of moments lost or stolen.
They’re trekking through the Dim Domains
(where fountains weep, the mountain wanes), 
yet can’t escape the Hurricanes
            with trundling eyes patrollin’.

The Crowds (arrayed in jewels) in jails,
stoop, peering through a fence of nails
while light behind their eyeballs pales
	with plastic flame that sputters.
They huddle there because they must
(with eyelids hung like peeling rust,
their tears, palled pellets in the dust),
	behind the bolted shutters.
They’ll reawake without their pains
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
without their sores, without their stains,
their agonies will fill the drains
	and overflow the gutters.


 End
Form: Rhyme


Worth Saving, Part Ii

...Shakespeare and his pentameter, vital after four centuries,
Cervantes and his man Sancho,
Dumas and Montecristo,
the great tales of Boccaccio,
Dicken and his fine ghosts three.

Beethoven's sonic fury still staggers even jaded minds,
Tchaikovsky made eighteen-twelve
sound utterly epic as well,
Hayden’s string quartets still sell,
even Beatles have immortal rhymes.

Newton and his marvelous brain cracked open the world of physics,
Charles Darwin shocked with his words,
Galileo far orbits observed,
Einstein showed that space was a curve,
built up our science, brick-by-brick.

A Pantheon of perfection, still grand amidst the Roman street,
Notre Dame, lofty and sacred,
Sagrada rises high overhead,
Parliament sports the Big Ben,
the majestic dome of Saint Pete’s.

Who can’t help but like Highlander games with cabers tossed every which way?
Running with bulls puts you to the test,
who can frown at Oktoberfest?
Gotta’ love those Christmas markets,
the traditions of holiday.

To think that two rather large wars invalidate the entire thing?
All mankind is versed in war,
fought in many, many before,
we’ll be fighting them forever more,
doesn’t mean you aren’t worth saving.

Now your cultures face angry foes who believe you should not survive.
Extremists who promote Islam,
socialists who get everything wrong,
‘elite’ leftists who put you on,
dragging you down with their lies…
When, in truth, Europe should grow and thrive.
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member NEW BEGINNINGS

"All time is eternally present. 
The end and the beginning were always there" T.S. Eliot Four Quartets, "Burnt-Norton"

New beginnings of all worlds gone astray
At the end of the old world one new
Closed roads leading to an unseen way
Once blocked now open and into view
All love will always be renewed

In all ends a new begins
All beginnings from an end
A Closed Circadian Circle spins
From destruction into birth it bends
All way around to art and love it sends

Burning forests
Make way for spring's ripening fruit
And ashes turn to catalysts
Sea water into rain then morning dew
All breathing cycles of life anew

Rubble into paradise gardens turn
Broken pieces to completed treasured vase
All exile moves to an expected return
Destruction into majestic fragrant days
And death unto a resurrection that saves

Space and breath for new beginnings
In the desert an oasis find
Where arid sands shift into cooling springs
And waste is made into poetic rhyme
While dissonance into music sings

A hero’s victory raised from defeat
An artist’s triumph found after sinning
Returning memories trampled under feet
Survival from devastation’s underpinning
Transformations into an eternal new beginning
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Garden Party

Tuneful preludes play on whoosh of spring wind
as flowers spread their kaleidoscopic  wings
Two quartets daze in awe while celebrating
a reunion with picnic and  ballroom dancing.
The golden showers radiate and incandesce…
Tulips and jasmine nearby bloom so fresh.
Like utopia where ensembles are veritable
Birds of paradise hung their notes to warble.
Music plays…. in graceful moves…smiles scintillate
a luncheon together - each one will never forget.
Memories are all in photos with red roses
Big sunflowers are captured…jutting our faces.
I hold tenaciously an album in a bright clip
of families in garden party for close  friendship.


July 7, 2014    11.10pm

















Third Place
Contest: Garden Party: Verb-alized Noun-sense with floral accents
Judged: 7/15/2014
Sponsor: Poet Cyndi MacMillan
© Len Gasun  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Sonnet

Premium Member Stars and Moonbeams

come to me your footsteps in the night
let time for us take flight grow wings
but not before it’s singed its twilight
when quartets commence to strum their strings

come drink with me and douse your lips
let’s stir the stars and midnight breeze
come closer rest your hands upon my hips
and fill the air with whispers as you please

together conjure flights of dreams
dance and sway beneath sweet starlit skies
set out to capture vagrant moonbeams
take in the feast set out before our eyes



Published in my 24-page photo/anthology book ~CITYLIGHTS~ 2021

AP: 2nd place 2022

Submitted on January 12, 2022 for contest A STRAND (1050) sponsored by BRIAN STRAND  -  RANKED 1ST


Premium Member Beyond Love

The sun will rise,the sun will set,
no more love will life beget;
The day will break,the moon to rise,
no more love,as this life dies;
The Summer heat,or Winter cold,
no more love will this life hold;
The Autumn fall,and Springtime green,
no more again,will love be seen;
The wheat will shoot,the grass will grow,
no more again sweet love to know;
The grape will ripen on the vine
no more,no more will love be mine.



inspired after reading an essay by Nicholas Ferrar(1592-1637) the English ascetic of the Little 
Gidding community(was also TS Eliot's inspiration foth the last of his Four Quartets).
Form: Kyrielle

Premium Member Four Quartets

Walk through the maze in cryptic lines,
Heed tensile will in odd strange words;
Attend the craze where thoughts incline,
Bear scraps of meals in echoes heard.


All in sure time the vital space,
Garden to play with childhood dreams;
Innocence rhymes in frolic's face,
Unfurl harsh ways in shady themes.


Here in these woods know lost and found,
The broken means in weary dust;
Pain answers good in dreary grounds,
Confused the scene in patchwork trust.


Evolve in parts the jigsaw strange,
Raw edges hurt in form and fire;
Gone are the hearts that die deranged,
Dust follows dirt in sad attire.


All out of sync these pictures odd,
No one can tell reason to fit;
Nonsense can link a logic sought,
Yet no one dwells to final fit.


Too much the pains of constant wear,
Harsh times speak out to stir old wounds;
Salt on cuts stain that pain that tears,
The crushing shouts in the last noon.


To be or not is all in vain,
The story runs in circles round;
Sense is forgot in acid rain,
No wit or pun can alter grounds.


Meaning beyond sense attempts meaning,
Corrupt this world that clings to dust;
Yet style pretence in blurry things,
Sight in a swirl still apes bleak trust.


Here lost is found in ancient grounds
No need to reach for unknown highs;
Cryptic feels sound where light sifts round,
Sense time to ditch those frightful sighs.




Leon Enriquez
06 May 2015
Singapore
Form: Quatrain

Premium Member 4 Quartets a Tribute

(BN)
to what purpose
  this heart of light
       still moving
before time
    and
      after
empty of meaning
in a turning world
bereft
    of sunlight
(EC)
a time for building
where
poetry does not matter
a distant
         panorama
         an echoed
         ecstasy
a different
      kind of 
                failure
inarticulate
in
empty
    desolation
(TDS)
almost forgotten
many voices
the emotionless
         unchanging
where agony
            abides
still
unopened:
    this sphere
    of being
unattended
     out of time
(LG)
a transitory
       blossom
in place & time
hope&despair
     half recalled
of little
       importance
died
      forgotten
every phrase
          a pattern
in
  a
    knot
      of
        fire
Form: Ekphrasis

Premium Member Blessings of Music

// This is my tribute to the many blessings that music brings to our
lives. I know many of you share this enthusiasm and gratitude. //

Appreciating an amazing artform: allegro, andante, or adagio -
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms: beautiful berceuse, ballad, and bolero
Classical concertos and Christmas chorales crescendo concordantly
Dancers delight to dizzying drums and delectable dynamics
Ensemble eloquently emotes euphonic etudes and elegies
Flautist fluttertongues flute in frenzied fantasia or fantastic fugue
Guitar gallivants through gavotte, graced by glockenspiel glissandos
Heavenly hymns, happily harmonized, hearkening hearty hallelujahs
Improvising instruments inspiring in impromptu inventions,
Jovial jazz juxtaposition of jubilant, jamming jitterbugs
Kalimba keeps count as keyboardist kinetically caresses keys
Love song lullabys - lilting, legato lines of luxuriant, longing lyrics
Minuet melodies and madrigals marking mellifluous motifs
Nutcracker's necklace of nourishing notes: a nighttime nocturne
Orchestra's opulent overture opus, oratorio's operatic octet
Pianist plays presto pianissimo pitches in pulsing pizzicato perfection
Quartets and quintets on a quest for quality quiescent quarter notes
Romantic rhapsody rhythms resonate as rock 'n roll reverberates
Symphonies and sonatas send spine shivers, saxophone solos soar
Tenor troubadours tremolo in tempo as trumpet thrills with trills
Utopia of unassuming ukuleles unwinding in unison
Voluptuous violin vibrato, virtuoso vocalist, vivace vintage vibraphone
Well-tempered woodwinds wield wonderful waltzes worth whistling
Xylophone eXudes eXcitement in eXquisite eXtemporaneity
Yearning for youthfulness, you yodel "Yesterday"
Zesty zither anyone?
© John Watt  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member Soundscape Strata

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 spurred his palette of sound
to become one with the elusive rainbow
providing independence through marriage of numbers
allowing prolonged courtship
sanctioning destinies to verge
converge
separate
return to coalesce?

And so

From guitar
to clavichord
string quartets
to symphonies
counterpart airs were discovered
became melodious architecture
challenging new musical frontiers
voiding tundra's boundary rules
reducing history's brass survey monuments
to mere reflections of past memory

Popularization of Bach's invention
soared beyond the artistic elite
for in '55 "Picnic" graced movie screens
initiating the unsuspecting
elevating emotion with layered melodies
Moonglow playing under the love theme
Bach's kaleidascope of synchronous colors
reached the century's romantics
keyed into a music major
minored ala Brubeck
scat-a-tized via Ella and Mel
and
made unity of opposites a given

Thus

From Bach's synthesis of two dimensions
musical ironies evolved
influencing writers' language
line upon line
stanza to stanza
chapter to chapter
making magical
the double entendre
metaphor
subtext
contrapuntal imaginings
all translated into
infinite language-in-progress

With applause knowing nowhere to go
except to acknowledge the roots of prodigy
a high five to the man
who pioneered so much of our soundscape
taught us all the numbers of romance
ironically created attraction to opposites
arpeggios with many colors
intimacy amidst chaos

Encore Mr. Bach

Encore
© Odin Roark  Create an image from this poem.

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