Percussive Poems

Rainfall Reflections

A hush of gray descends, the world outside a blur
Of weeping glass and dancing leaves, a gentle stir.
The scent of wet earth and cooled pavement climbs the air,
As warmth from a steaming cup soothes away all care.

In her hands, a porcelain hug, the tea's floral grace,
Sweet steam whispers against the skin of her face.
The book on her knees, a weight of stories untold,
Its paper scent, a comfort, a history to hold.

The rhythmic drum of rain against the pane,
A soft, percussive melody to wash away the pain.
Each drop a tiny echo of a memory long past,
A life unfolding, too beautiful to ever last.

A sip of warmth, a bitter-sweet and soothing brew,
A taste of all the moments she has ever been through.
The cool ceramic on her palms, a solid, gentle feel,
The world outside is fading, but this moment is so real.

She closes her eyes and listens to the low hum,
The quiet symphony of the world she's come from.
The taste of tea, the smell of rain, the warmth within her soul,
The past and future merge to make her present whole.

The Drum Is Beating Still

The drum is beating still
For now the setting sun
Will set the beating heart
Now that the race is run

Beyond the moving breeze
Beyond the dying light
The phantom thunder cries
The drum rolls in the night

The shadows in the dark reveal
The moonscape of the lawn
One feels the beat percussive
Pulsing – on and on

It beats a rhythmic message
In passages beneath
The granite stones that listen
To what it will bequeath

Of music it has harbored
Of songs it dwells upon
That sing we still into our cups
For those among us gone –

Behold the moving shadow, now
Behold the fading breath
Passing through the doorway
Beyond that final step –

And now what countenances
The thunder in the sky?
We hear it in the distance
But miss it with our eyes

We miss it in our living
A spirit unfulfilled
Forever in denial –
The drum is beating still


Dedicated to Bruck, Tiz and Neil ("The Professor") Peart -> Drummers all who left their mark, and are beating still within my heart.

Blood Pulsing Deletions

Natural death licking aims
Now our bleach seasons heirs
And the pubis of public lore

Intrauterine spinning blue dream cream
Roils rushing a rock star’s semen searching 
For golden lands of rum and sable ladies eyeing

Blown ear-drum truth percussive
Hand-grenade vibrator lipstick hash
Recall spinning reams in a hyperinflation

Of love overture blend ground night hues of whispers
Meaninglessness long snaking verbs of silence wilt low

Screw worm elect obscene emotive drooling apocalypses

Fragments Landed Here

fRaGmEnTs
landed HERE
  in time for
the twilight of
  life

…where
percussive villains
perform on
a global stage
as glowing slime
slithers
through one
  mendacious midpoint
  at a time &
earth's spectacles
    observe
obscene pentacles
grind down
    fragmented souls
battling blustery trolls
    blowing ghoulish gusts
    amidst charming
charmonia
dancing
      the
    cha-cha-cha
on a shipwreck
shouting...

        OFF->TO->THE->RACES-->
          going off
                     the Rails
  in an utterly unforgiving
                    tunnel
                    leading to
                    untimely
                    ter
                      mi
                          na
                            tion

Xylophone

Xanadu may exude such percussive bliss
Youthful romps and a coy stolen kiss
Lightly tapping in jaunty melifulous splendor
Orpheus muse prances playfully tender
Pounding with swift light jazzy flourishes
Heart and soul the xylophone nourishes
Oblivious to troubles I cannot stop my feet
Notions of love brightly swing to the beat
Each crisply chimed note a gift beyond sweet

Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue…

Slinking into a still hue of blues 
Haunting trumpets dart in and out
Like taxi horns in freeloading traffic
And cling like silk onto full figured rifs 
When winsome modal notes wear sleek cobalt 
 Where soulbeats throb from smoky bars 
Blue moods of so what
Sway like humid lovers on rainy nights
 To the clink of ice in shot glasses
  And afterhours shades of whisky, sweat and old scotch -
Smooth as muted cool 
Luxurious tracks of indigo distilled intimacy 
 Stretch without strict resolutions
Improv exhales unashamed sketches
Of empty barstools and empty arms
As modes of blue undress into serendipity
When newborn sounds wrap limbs around
 Old scores of stale melodic staves
Steady bass lines underscore mellow beats
 Unperturbed ruminating pulse,
Slow percussive murmurs 
Like rhythmic subways of all blues slow walking 
With mystic measures of ebb and neap attraction -
A perpetual kiss slides slow into a kind of blue.

Serge

When Resonant

My spiritual vulnerability
to feel persuaded
and powers to persuade
emerge curiously informed
by Others speaking suggestions
and my own inside power digestions
not yet said out loud,
uproarious

Yet co-arising
from life's multi-generational crowd
EarthDay choir
cyber cloud
singing and dancing every day
for Earth's integral potential,
sacramental organic health
reproducing GREEN capitalized wealth,
fabulously non fatuous

inside
as outside
nuturingly nutritious

above 
as below
delightfully delicious

Suggestions that land
sync
resonate
with percussive persuasion,
efficiently efficacious.

Like
"Maybe you need appreciation
for who you are
already?"
non vindictively victorious

Maybe I want
more integrity,
synergy,
positive neurosystemic
organic
healthy
sacred holonic energy?
non glamorously glorious.

Dances of Vibrating Rituals

No Exit
musicians hide behind scarring sounds
beyond madness
beyond folly
beyond Somewhere Everywhere

dance with delirious determination
through fragments of melodious folly

dissonant dulcimers declare 
repetitive chords
within punctuated digital drones

repetitive beyond vibration
vibrating beyond repetition

percussive rituals vibrate 
beyond inflated vaudevillians 
mutating into
mad cacophonous comedic collisions

rituals beyond vibrating cacophony
rituals behind chaotic vibrations

deranged vibraphones 
denounce
fragments of repetitive visions 
mindful of mindless
Exits

Mad Musicians

Mindful/less music moves mad musicians
      save/lift/elevate
Shreds of Song

Diatonic drones dancing on the digital drums
      vibrate/move/inflate
Fragments of Folly

Percussive pianos punctuating points of peace
      inflate/inspire/infuse
Elements of Exultation

Drum Beat

Enticing beat,
ancient accolades, achieving ancestry
 backbeat barrage, buoyant beats
crescendo chorus  calculations
 dulled dirges, double drumming durations
environmental echoed egos
 faint, fading fervent falsettos;
Ghost-Note grooves
 hi-hat hoop heads hued
intended isolation idio-synchrony
 jembe jaunt journeyings
kidi kick knockings
 linear lick loggings
metronome mallets magical
 nostalgic notations neurological
ostinato off-beat odd-modulationss
 paradiddle  percussive permutations,  
rudimentary rack repetitions, relentless rolls,
 soft solitary shakers, steady shredding, single stroking spurs,
tenacious, tribal tectonic tympani trance 
 udu utterance 
 vibraslap virgin, vivid vibes vile,
 wood-block whirls winging wild 
xboba, x-hat, xaern
 yearning yugen yarn 
zigzag
 enticing beat.

Northern Lights

They came dancing without rules,
fervent visitants, fanning flamingo dresses of furious prisms, 
figments so lustrous, figurantes in gleeful percussive permutations,
Their luminous spectral syncopation dazzling against a stark dark vista,
against the opaque nocturnal skyline, against all the bruises of one’s psyche.
They came dancing.

They were currents of tormented effulgence, wave upon wave,
a rocky glistening sea, a silent tumultuous celebration.
To behold is to be enraptured, to abandon all wretchedness,
to suspend all awareness of the human capacity for cruelty.
In the flood of the flaming sky, one is lifted by inexplicable wings,
by the ballroom careening intoxication.
They came dancing without rules.

Qanon Poison

Panic mongers, hate mongers,
                  traffickers in groupthink. 
The key to the universe,
	you must never let facts interfere 
		 with all your  
 obsessive incessant fables.
 	You must never doubt the veracity of
		of the latest tale of terror.
A secret Satanic elite of cannibalistic pedophiles,
	All the liberals are in on it, don’t you know?
		          Soros and Gates in collusion.  
Evangelical contagion,
the deep state  under every bed,
	the boogeyman behind it all.
Any questioner is complicit.
Any true believer will be saved. 
Apophenia intoxication,
		Donald Trump is your savior.
Your mind is malleable to malignancy,
		 It metastasizes in your trance.
The putrid contamination percolates
		      everywhere  in deafening silence.    
Each taste of QAnon venom, 
	      Each flavor of terror,
seizes and imprisons the masses of minds
	   And  if you listen, you will hear
the percussive funeral dirge
	for the death of the civilized world.

Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uqZhnqHMAg


The orchestra strains to be symphonic --- a bee in a tin box.
Cigar smoke thunders, molecules of sound wilt
only to be dialed up through brass lungs.
The combo is quaintly upholstered, a classic sports car
driven by Disney. Outmoded refrains gurgle.
We see the obsolete road ahead, feel the bumps,
the lack of shock absorbers.

The third piano concerto, the romance of the exile.
1940 is pulled from under its Perspex lid, served up
as fresh Prosciutto di Parma consumed in a diner
long derailed.
The mind warps eras, Michelangelo has gone Hollywood,
the 'Creation' sketched on a paper napkin.

Last notes. 
Hands too large for tuxedoed minds, stamp
like rhapsodic elephants.
Percussive fingers slam-dunk ivory tusked themes,
Russian bells quake California.
Rolling vespers outgrowing each decade,
times now locked in a recovery CD millimeters thin.


~~~


https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/10/sergei-rachmaninoff-car-guy-aero-investor/

Summertime

I.

Ta da, ta da, flip,

like cards in bicycle spokes,

percussive shoe, flop...



II.

Long spaghetti straps,

full circle twirly skirted,

sundress in warm breeze.



III.

Morning sand dune climb,

woven basket, cheese, red wine,

noon apéritif. 


-Edlynn Nau
©April 17, 2019

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