Purposely off center, on tippy toe.
What a feat; completely nuts.
Tummy tuck, umbrella in hand,
just clowning around; on the brink
of a niagara fall. Tintinnabulation of
power, provoking an audience cower;
…over the rainbow it seems.
The audience holds on for dear life.
Colors blossoming like sunbursts.
Muscling up courage to close my eyes.
The ringing in my mind, an eruption
of a pale face, red honker, on the edge.
Blinking umbrella with ab rise and fall.
What was I thinking? Can’t turn back,
losing my grip, decentralized.
The audience holds on for dear life.
If you stand strongly with and for Liberty
I will fearlessly join you
If you stand firmly for Freedom
I will cheer the noble gestures of your kingdom
If you stand enthusiastically for Equality
I will ecstatically stand with you too
If you stand for good democracy
I will help you spread the seeds of Love
I will happily clap when the doves are hovering above
If you stand solidly for fair and equal justice
I will help you ring the bells of peace
I will fervently pray for you all the time
I will sporadically listen to the tintinnabulation of the chime
Brothers and sisters, I have tears of hope in my eyes today
Otherwise
My pen is able and ready amidst the fray
And it won’t be so wise
Because I love my fellow human beings, our people
Who are black, red, white, yellow and purple.
P.S. This poem is dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and to our brothers and sisters.
Copyright © January 2025, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved.
Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.
We are a species gnawing at the roots of existence, hellbent on self-immolation, our every endeavor a funiculus of futility. The argent legacy of our forebears, squandered by imbecilic hands that molded us into hollow effigies, devoid of essence, yet rictus-grinning with vacuous ignorance.
Fear, the petrifying shackles that bind us, rendering us ciphers of compliance, indentured servants to the whims of the elected elite. We toil, mesmerized by the tintinnabulation of trinkets, and the numeric abstractions that promise ephemeral solace, but deliver only eternal enslavement.
We are fallen titans, parasitic echoes of greatness, our nebulous dreams reduced to flickering embers, as we succumb to the siren's song of servitude.
Worst of all someone is reading this right now thinking I am gloomy and need to smile, but can’t say I am wrong, my question to you is, your joking right?
Those bells, those jubilant, jaunty clangers
Vibrating chimes dancing across meadows
Cavorting through town
Are gone.
Stolen by a rogue poet
Abetted by a teacher
Who played a recording
Of Poe’s….THE BELLS.
Around the fifth replay
I swore off poetry for life,
Rescued only by
Tintinnabulation therapy.
I still cringe
At the sound of a doorbell.
Not Poe’s fault
My neighbor
Is always looking
To borrow something
I offered to lend him
The bell.
Written: November 28, 2023
______________________________________
Beneath the sweltering luminescent sky.
A thunderbolt flared over the silent firefly.
Oak-smoke tones and vanilla bean paste.
Swung idly, draped as moss from a baste.
Tintinnabulation caused by wind-borne sighs.
The gentle quiet of flora roughness is dry.
Evenfall cobalt-wrapped nascent starlight.
A crescent-shaped moon is gloaming in flight.
An avalanche of a billion Katydid wing beats
Cricket voices in a range of alto to bass feats
My gem-encrusted flame bursts and spits.
Beneath a benumbed bowl, boiling hiss.
My soul finds solace in the lichened death fall.
I was thrilled by the fire and the creepy owl call.
A soft mist falls across drooping eyelids.
amid the dancing stars and firefly skids.
A closer look at a fantastic word
And no, I’m not talking in bafflegab
To not repeat this speak is just absurd
To absquatulate like a fracas herd
Throw a foofaraw over a little jab
A closer look at a fantastic word
A uni-brow is a glabella furred
And whirligigs hung too slapdash to grab
To not repeat this speak is just absurd
Scuttlebutt schlepped to sassafras by bird
Skedaddle from a skirmish of stone crab
A closer look at a fantastic word
A quibble over razzmatazz occurred
Doohickey from a lummox, easy nab
To not repeat this speak is just absurd
So scrumdiddlyumptious I may have slurred
Like tintinnabulation, it’s not drab
A closer look at a fantastic word
To not repeat this speak is just absurd
bells
loud, silvery
announcing, resounding, warning
chime, tintinnabulation, referee, shriek
piercing, summoning, whirring
shrill, tiny
whistles
Date created: 07/03/2022
They Took Him
By Sy Roth
They took him and squirreled him away.
Those Sophists,
Deniers of the terror they could construct
Where he no longer saw the human side of himself.
Half man, Quasimodo of the bells,
Left stranded in the bell tower.
No one to call to
Tintinnabulation orphaned from humanity.
Left in his bed only to dream
Or bury his nightmares
Whisked beneath his bed in a heap
Dreams cohabited with the dust bunnies.
Silent, sinister hopes left tangled
In a macabre kerfuffle--
Jacob and his Angel
In a struggle to exist.
They took him and he saw only this reality,
The ward in which he lived
A husk of humanity blown against a galling wind,
Crushed against unforgiving walls.
And he languished in his diapered world
Waiting for his eyes to heal
And his twisted lips to unfurl
Waiting to greet a new morn
Away from the cycle of existence.
A gloomy morning is arising,
the monotonous rain of December
makes soothing, relaxing sounds
for those soundly sleeping.
This unexpected rainy day
causes a cozy feeling,
and pelting on rooftops
it creates new dreams
for anyone awaiting spring.
Why are the red-breasted meadowlarks absent?
It's the beginning of winter
and it's not snowing yet!
Around seven o'clock they used
to wake me up as the brilliant sunrays
spread and blinded my sight...
reminding me to whisper
my prayer and appreciate life more.
Even the church bells are silent
in their tower bell, they used
to thrill me with their tintinnabulation;
I anxiously stepped outside
to hear them more clearly,
has the bell ringer fallen asleep?
I eagerly wait on the balcony
adorned with pretty lilies and petunias
in pottery vases that sadly drip,
soon I'll freeze feeling the Arctic wind
entering my bones and blowing hard;
it'll anticipate snow and ice. I couldn't
stand the cold weather for long;
would the merry sound of bells
make one forget that it's still winter?
Deliberately debating a debilitating disease,
Excruciates and exacerbates existential ease.
Loquaciously lugubrious her lacrimonious wailing,
Instilled in me an ignominy of incongruous assailing.
Galling in its gargantuan, garrulous gainsaying,
Hypocritical hyperbole it goes without saying.
Tormenting me with tales of her tinnitus tintinnabulation,
Forced me to fulminate with ferocity and damnation.
Until, unambiguously, I uttered my interdiction,
Life's too short and your lassitude would test a Saints benediction.
Thunderstorm
a midnight lightning
My monsoon, I could not awaken
thunder, I could not forsaken
Thundery tintinnabulation tinkling
A sudden, sonic boom
The thundery thunderhead thundering
And the thunderstorms never stewing
I was thundering
Meteoroid's that is wandering
a cloudburst and yes it hums
And that moment my soul grew noisy
Suddenly, I heard some sleeting
there be more purely fleeting?
Rain deafening washout
Thunder
I have dreamed of the torrents
I saw the rains
Only this and a aftershock
I saw the thunderbolts
Suddenly, I heard hollering
But in the fact that it was growling
the laughing, lumbering lightening
And the winds never whistling
Of the light's that is brightening
What there be more pure lightning?
I heard a windward, scintillating pounding
the howling beating
A rumble torn
Thunderstorm
8/20/20
written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2020 ©
Cherish Your Life Always
Cherish your life and never the strife,
as you face with grace all you must do.
This may be challenging at times for sure,
yet it is part of who we are in this life’s run.
Life is God’s gift to all of us no doubt,
as we each seek to find ourselves in life.
Each and every one of us in our lives are
gifted with a God-given purpose and self.
It is just a question of how each of us seek
and desire to find our true purpose and self.
Tintinnabulation is an incredibly unique word
for sounding all of what we feel and hear aloud.
This celebrated jingling of metaphoric bells
announces our purpose, passion, and feelings.
The “always” part of the formative four-word title
above speaks to the magic of life to be cherished.
Without our aspirations, our musings, our thoughts,
then who the hell are we in this life and hope to be?
I believe now that Almighty God already knows this
this question, do we? Answers shall come later. Amen.
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
November 30, 2018 (Couplet)
what the ancient groom
kens with exclamatory
bliss: his prismatic diamond.
profusion of light,
tintinnabulation of
melodic soulmates ~ the bride.
4/9/2020
Title chosen: Infinitude
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Checked with howmanysyllables.com
dalliance in a bungalow; euphony.
our mellifluous voices blend and
no longer is mine demure
felicity fills our love lagoon
an effervescent elixir
that which is becoming of beauty
that, which is so ephemeral.
fugacious love succumbs to day
for when the gossamer web of amorance
turns chatoyant in sunlight,
their murmurous musings begin
and so we must reveal the imbroglio of our verboten affairs.
‘tis all clandestine, dear ingénue,
we found serenity by serendipity
and though our tryst succeeds the lullabies,
it must to languor yield by aurora
thus, let us savour this
dalliance in a bungalow, bucolic and aglow
with the tintinnabulation of your summery lilt.
our mellifluous voices blend and
no longer is mine demure
Through many verses I have been seeking, minus perambulations -
Joy in hearing human words, hearts ... echo: golden tintinnabulations
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.