I've spent the last two weeks reviewing scholarship applicants to the university. These folks are the best of the best, already admitted and standing on mountains of accomplishments. Interestingly enough, the one thread that seems to tie the all together is music.
Music has always been a huge part of my life, whether listening or performing. I still prefer music over television, and am almost never without it. So, let's write about music. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Music has always been a huge part of my life, whether listening or performing. I still prefer music over television, and am almost never without it. So, let's write about music. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Fur Elise
ReplyDeleteWho was this Elise
That the composer could write
Such a hard piece for her?
Didn't he like her enough
to make the song easier?
My fingers stretch and stretch
and still do not always reach
the arpeggios without a hop
like the eensy weensy spider
making its way up that spout.
If anyone ever wants to write
a song for me, I'll say:
"Keep it simple. Keep it sweet.
Plenty of rests." That way
piano students will like me.
As fur Elise, I could care less.
©2011 by Jane Yolen, all rights reserved
--Jane Yolen
Last week I was experimenting with double dactyls for the first time and wrote one about Beethoven:
ReplyDeleteHiggledy Piggledy
Ludwig van Beethoven
Wrote the Eroica,
Sadly went deaf.
Incontrovertibly
Gifted and masterful.
Some say he’s better than
Brahms. Need a ref.
Beethoven Double Dactyl
Love that, Mad. In fact am a great fan of dd's.
ReplyDeleteit needs a title, something like: " Notes for a Student Paper"
Jane
Tricia,
ReplyDeleteHere's an animal mask poem:
MINNOW MUSIC
We’re silver-scaled.
We’re slippery, sleek.
We’re musical
And when we speak
Tiny shiny silver spheres
Of notes that only fish can hear
Bubble from our mouths and rise
Through the ocean’s liquid skies,
Reach the surface of the sea,
And burst into a melody.
We minnows sing in unison.
We’re one for all and all for one.
We harmonize all day in school.
We rock. We roll. We’re really cool!
*****
I love double dactyls too!
Such terrific stuff today! Here's my homage to that great unsung--no, that great sung pastime:
ReplyDeleteSinging in the Shower
I am crowing,
I am glowing,
as I scrub my arms and hair.
I am singing,
bubble flinging,
splashing water everywhere.
Oh, my song
sung in the shower,
how it echoes,
how it soars!
And the water sings
along with me—
it hisses and it roars.
Why is Ellie
out there knocking?
Why has Dad
begun to shout?
Just as soon
as I'm done singing,
I'll dry off
and sashay out!
--Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved
I started writing a poem about music, and this emerged instead. I suppose it has a music to it.
ReplyDeleteThe Mad Monologue of Doctor Chronology
(A Supervillain’s Lament)
By Steven Withrow
Any heart this world possesses must be dead.
And no, no other worlds exist. You’re free
To scoff, but I insist—Infinity
Hangs bleak and wholly heartless. I have said
As much to colleagues who would comprehend
The horrifying costs of cheating Time,
That knowing every outcome, every end
Before its cause, is tantamount to…I’m
Afraid you’ll have to nurse the glass I poured…
Is tantamount to rigging every game
Of take-your-chance and reaping no reward.
Yes, yes—I could reveal to you his name
Or home address. However, you should think—
And here I’ll buy us both another drink—
No matter what the bastard’s done to you,
What good would any retribution do?
Let’s say, by day, he teaches seventh grade,
A family man who, nightly, masquerades
As Fights-for-Truth-and-Justice Man, for fun.
You storm into his classroom with a gun,
Rejoicing in each bloody trigger-pull.
(I see your eyes; you’d down a barrelful.)
Then let’s suppose he’s quick enough to palm
Or misdirect your bullets. Do you bomb
A bus—no muss, no fuss—on second try,
While hiding in some rat-infested lair,
And feel him fall, a comet from the sky,
To cage you with his subatomic stare?
My boy, I have stood by and watched you fail,
Your machinations come to no avail,
For it’s the nature of my power to cast
My aura to the future or the past.
Go home—don’t be like me—I’ve lost the art.
Tomorrow, find yourself a steady job—
I hear they’re hiring muscle for The Mob—
Or disbelieve, and dog your own dead heart.
Copyright 2011 by Steven Withrow. All rights reserved.
Fur Elise ~ Jane you crack me up! I'm posting an old one I wrote for my mom a few years back, when she was still alive. It was her birthday last week and this posting's in honor of that.
ReplyDeleteMUSIC OF HER LOVE
Hanging up the phone after
chatting with my mom I want
to seize our conversation and
place it in a jar one of those
twelve-sided All Fruit beauties
I save and I’ll set it on the
top shelf of my refrigerator
knowing I will take it out
later in the day. Opening the
lid I’ll nestle the rim to my ear
the sweetness of my mother’s
voice swirling inside her
lilting words a cherished
lullaby and I will carry it
to my room where the
music of her love like
postcards sent to tuck
me in on this cold drab
January night will softly
sing me to sleep.
© Carol Weis, all rights reserved
shelter of my single bed
ReplyDeletewas I mellow?
never,
and what did tenth-graders know from mellow anyway?
but I did my best on the bus with Bob
and the boys to be mellow
about the kaya they would smoked
about being the one to decide
how far to go
was this love?
never
never love, never mellow
no woman no cry
but a little darling
stirring it up
Heidi Mordhorst 2011
all rights reserved