Syncopated Poems | Examples

pink jersey : traditional pirouette

[Poet’s Note : this is a wry autobiographical memory written in traditional pirouette verse viz. 2  quintains, line 5 & 6 repeat, the turnaround. I wanted to write a narrative of a weird syncopated vignette, when I was knitting a pink mohair jersey at the time of my imprisonment. When in prison, one of my interrogators was knitting the EXACT jersey in the exact colour ! ie. everything can be reduced to a pirouette, a turn-around dance. ]


knitting a pink jersey
mohair with cables fine
to process flying thoughts
political activist 
south africa turmoiled

south africa turmoiled
security police
came with caspirs and cuffs
interrogation room
police knit jersey pink

         ~~~~~~~~~

Within the Whispered Wind

Within the whispered wind, bumble bees
fly their syncopated figure eights.
Praying mantises fall to their knees
	…within the whispered winds.

Rich blessings float from heavenly gates
and set kissing dragonflies at ease
before all worldly sorrow abates.

Sunday psalms sung softly in the breeze
settle where the flock congregates.
Hallowed ambience exudes heartsease 
	…within the whispered wind.

spark quickly the rise

Spark quickly the rise, 
Dilating dark with glitter stars of cats eyes.
A language we sausage use. 
Clumsy myths attenuated 
With parachutes of feelings mapped; 
Syncopated copiously. 

A door opening those parts explored, for instance.
Snail trails of shiny slime on wet pavement;
Mirrors looking backwards, 
Entwining organs through time. 

Primarily another path 
That leads me back to you.

The Dance of Anger

The Dance of Anger…

A weary waltz, 
on a sheenless floor.
Offbeat music
gyrates an endless cycle.
On two, accent anxiety’s weakness     
Syncopated rhythms erupt.   
Love songs 
are a miss.                                
Vinyl scratched,
for a touch
a large charge
or a bit of blood.*  
Choreographed to move timely and allay tears. 
Uncrazy!
Dance to a different drum.

Awakened

Awakened
     "Silence fills all the spaces between
 the soft flutter of fragile butterfly wings.
 There one second and then gone, the faint breeze in a syncopated song.  
As twilight gatherers the dark corners close,  I hear the haunted lament of tormented ghosts.
Living in this wilderness on my own, the land and sky, mine alone.
For who else could enter, get inside my head?
Unless I allow entry through eyes now dead. 
No light shines forth, only milky white dark. 
The lament I hear is mine, in part…
    So, Cry for your losses! Weep for times past!
Tear your clothes! Cover your head with ash!
Moan and scream to the gathering night.
Don't take this pain without a fight. 

    Much good it does, no, none at all.
At the edge of my mind, I take the leap and fall….

Into strong waiting arms, I am lifted up…
Sanity returns, filling my once empty cup.
I'm given the key to unlock the door, 
And the hope to believe there's so much more!
Never alone,  never forsaken, the sun rises on this new life...awakened!"

Introducing the Splitzmodic Vibratones

Emaciated test-tube mutations 
Raised apart in pristine distillations 
Conceived in dexedrine celebrations 
and the crazed, ecstatic inhalations 
of the professor’s choicest pheromones 

Right-angled, inverted, and star-spangled
Drained and dangled till their nerves were jangled
Nearly psychedelically strangled  
Quantumly, at a distance, entangled 
On celestially balanced microphones

Their unproven kaleidoscope harmonics
Haywire mk-ultra histrionics
Phosphoric rhapsodical symphonics
And their backward time-lapse polyphonics
Transcribed on interstellar xylophones

For homunculus scintillations 
Splintered, syncopated oscillations
And desperate mute gesticulations
No one beats those galactic sensations
Our own mad-twin Splitzmodic Vibratones

Maestro

Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996)

In the midst of stale fog – Is it day or night?
The dimmed dishevelled lights don’t give a bass clef 
Whilst notes made syncopated love at the bar
A tsunami of discord,
blew out the flame of a good old fashioned
And lipstick-stained stubbed ends forgot bruised anguish
A minor digress

Untainted melodies,
swung from a silhouette commissioned from a Nova 
Calling humanity to bath in the melody of birdsong
Quenching dried remnants of bourbon with a perfect pitch
Of rare cut diamond chords and rip

Each instrument paused before the bar
As the voice tootled a trumpet sound
The lady knew how to blow that horn
Yet, no brass brushed against her lips

Then, silence waited in awe for the coveted scat
From the sui generis range of a regal gemstone
Where the constellations hold the original cut
With lulled echoes flowing to hit ‘rewind’

The Dance

Around the feeder
the hummingbirds are dancing.

Naturally, they are just flying and feeding,
just surviving, they dart and hover,
none need to dance
even though this non-choreographed
syncopated air-skimming
looks like a dance to slower eyes.

They drive each other away from the nectar,
even bumblebees, they must feed,
for tomorrow they go to Mexico
and only the strong will make it.

The most nimble eventually
dancing with death all the way.

Extra Pizzazz Jazz

The oomph and zing of extra spin
adds razzmatazz to shot akin
to the standing ovation din
a hole in one gets for a win.

The cream screams to the top.

The razzle and dazzle of dance 
shake, rattle and roll of romance 
is enhanced by the oddball prance
of a jitterbug jive freelance.

Bebop is king of pop.

Jazz embodies the extra dash
of syncopated mish and mash
adding gems of splish, splosh and splash
improvisation in a flash.

Flip-flop until you stop.

Flight

Flight by Terence Cummings-Smith,
I ride the path ballistic,
        in a screaming, scorching arc.
From perigee in flaming hell
        to apogee far beyond Arcturus.
Neutrons and tachyons spray,
        from magnetic nozzles.
Through burning twisting vortex,
        of syncopated space and time.
Reality compresses into pinpoint ultraviolet before,
        Mote infrared behind.
My very thoughts lingering,
        most far behind.
Time's march freezes,
        rolls retrograde.
Nuclei dance, atomically chattering,
        Quarks trance.
And I'm there.

Life of a Day

This day 
of lurking June, 
Only ink  flows, 
In the life of cool jazz, so soon,
Lost          in syncopated truths
Of a simple birdsong
Released   unto rhythm and language, 
Rendered unto conspicuous climaxes, 
In an ocean of words, 
In elemental stasis to inspiration from the commission, 
Of several surprises risked          by bubbles’ breathes,   
On surfaces      where staying Silent is the largest tool.

Aura of Dusk

Sweet scent of magnolia permeated the air
on the cusp of a balmy summer gloaming
Myriads of stars would soon gleam above
My garden was already dappled with light
awash in the luminance of tiny fireflies

Diminutive lanterns had taken wing
in search of a mate or to feast on prey
Dancing in circles while crickets chirped
Not syncopated in rhythm, but all the same...
I was enchanted with their golden glow

Flickering sprites, mystical fairy creatures
They lingered long after the moon had risen
I dared not move in fear of chasing them away
No lidded prison would hold Nature's treasures
flitting in my garden in the aura of dusk

The Big Easy

The Big Easy called to me
Packed my bag and went to see
New Orleans a place to eat
Took a stroll down Bourbon Street.

Summer night a sound of jazz
I'm bopping along full of sass
Hearing syncopated blues
Music followed to rendezvous.

Have a date to eat soul food
Hungry and thirsty in the mood
The Big Easy helped me unwind
Shrimp gumbo tasting mighty fine.

And That's All I Ams

My ball sack has grown
While my p-n-s,  much shorter,
Is now only known
For its passing of water
Which it does like clockwork
Twice every hour
So to save my poor cock work
I piss in the shower
Once at the start
And again, at the end
With a syncopated fart
That I add to the blend.
I’m just an old, faded failure
Who has run out of damns
But like Popeye the Sailor
I ams what I ams,

© Barry Freeman	April 2021

Rhapsody On a Theme By Gershwin

The train to Boston goes clonkity dong, clonkity ding,
and ever the handy hack Gershwin takes up
the rhythm and makes it sing.
Rhapsodic rhapsodies in jazz mode
stomp among the carriage silverware and glasses,
makes them tink, jitter and chatter
to the shoe shined suits
that doze along to the whitling of whistled tunes.
The moon necks in, illumines a fountain pen
as he, jotting, heels pumping up and down
knees’ a ‘cracking, sketches his syncopated sounds.
It’s coming together except for the molasse’s,
the liquorish stick, added later
with a whisky-wet wail,
then the whole city skyline spoke it up, ears flapped,
as the schtick stuck.
A small combo took to tuxedos, added more chairs
for symphonic fiddlers.
Chronic indigestion is relieved nationwide.
Middle-aged men wear their fedoras more rakishly,
ladies take to the streets in sheer nylon.
Del-eez and dives jive
to the pulse and swing of a scrawny Jewish guy
hammering black notes together
as if he were born in catfish row.

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