Turning Music into Poetry

The sister arts of poetry and music come together in these renderings of poetry out of music. Great music always stays with you, it makes you remember, it makes you happy. Poetry made out of this music adds dimensions and ideas to its musical sound. All music is saying something, now you can hear what it is this music is saying.

Sorrowful Songs

- after Henryk Gorecki's Third Symphony

Lento I
Dawn, September 1, 1939
Poland attacked, then Europe, the world at war.
Human pain and music, growling deep
as the thunder of artillery
rips life from its body.
Rising as the sound above all slaughter
a single female voice
from the epiphany of one note
mother of earth, do not cry
mother support me
mother, the end of creation?

Lento E Largo II
Death squads
you can hear their beat.
Nameless, slow but stampeding
in a chorus of fire, the architect's
of living destruction
massive, archaic.
As narrative to those who come after
survive child
mother, my blood.

Lento III
Death, the death to come
step off the path
to the end of all things.
Mother I am fading
almost gone
one breath from you
still the world collapsing
around your voice
mother.

Wet Passion Sounds

-after songs from all of the below

I'm wet, with the religion of music
licking me from the inside
slow as a battle cruiser
quicker than Keith Emersons mind
as beautiful as sex with you

Do you suppose that Elvis
could not have written Veronica
or that Long and Winding Road
the Beatles crawled

Those fat thick sounds Along a Watch Tower
could Sway be any better?

and when Love Breaks down In the Heat of the Moment
You Belong to the City
it gets you high

And Korn, Good god
Get the Fuck Out of My Face

Time to Play Dead
and kiss the eyes of Bjork
with wet lips, wet love, wet fingers
curling up inside the private torture
of damp overdriven sub-connected sounds.

I am drenched with the music of passion.

Circle of 5ths

C Major
Leading from the middle
better step wise
as un-abandoned self ownership.

G Major
Organic
but missing
the spot.

D Major
Reverberating distance
sadder than most
creating what follows.

A Major
A march, processional
mountains and streams
a happy ending plucked
from the heart of its core.

E Major
Circumstantially proud
driving destinies along their path
seldom heard in the dark.

B Major
Military movements
battle scars
and exploding stars.

F# Major
A pianists nightmare
crippling debilitating anger
close your eyes, hope for the best.

Bb minor
Mother of destruction
of pain and dread
Shostakovich
even Gershwin said.

F minor
Deep, dirty
growling from the earth
in sympathy
behind the touch of others.

C minor
Russian
good for the death of Lieutenants
and icy winter landscapes.

G minor
Lost in how it feels
pouring through my skin
the notes of missing desire.

D minor
After death
for grieving hard and fast
for saying goodbye.

In the Sound of Nevsky

In a rush of drums and death comes the sound
the breathe, the flames of war.

Strings that slither and hiss like the winds
across a frozen landscape.

Bells ring out, processional triumph
that marks its place in history.

A choir cries aloud
as rushing armies collide.

Barrages of percussion crash down
as heavily armed invaders
falling thorough ice.

A lone female voice sings
on the field of the dead.

Beauty and bravery
have faded and died.

The great campaign written out
across a canvas of sound.

Smashing history and lives
to save the motherland.

- after Alexander Nevsky, Sergi Prokofiev.