Bird Song Musical Notation

 

 

 

semibreve

            t

 

minim

            ur

 

crotchet

            alee

 

quaver

            cheeriup

 

semiquaver

            jaay tseeeeeeaarr

 

demisemiquaver

            conk-la-reeeeee conk-la-reeeeee tsk tsk

 

hemidemisemiquaver

            per-chik-or-ree chip-ee chip-ee chip-ee queek queek queek drink-your-teeeeeeeee

 

 

            ***************

 

semi, min, crot – bluebird

quaver – robin

semiquaver – blue jay, red-tailed hawk

demisemiquaver – blackbird

hemidemi- goldfinch, woodpecker, eastern towhee

 

 

 

Safari Reserve Musical Notation

 

semibreve

g

 

minim

ir

 

crotchet

            affe

 

quaver

            elephant

 

semiquaver

            bonobo hippo rhino

 

demisemiquaver

            leopard hyena hyena oops baby gazelle

 

hemidemisemiquaver

            lion lioness leap leap roar zebra zebra zebra run panic run ewwww chomp munch

 

 

 

 

Ode to the Bassoon

 

coyote changeling

            you are the trickster, bad boy

blustering through city streets, hair slicked back, casting staccato stones

through windows

                                                of empty buildings     

 

 

yet your high notes pivot us

into a different world

tall mountain pines sway in wind skirl

                        a fawn glints through aspen trunks

 

                                                                        ribboning from a wooden roof

intertwined wisteria

 

            your medium register, smooth

                        prop plane swoops

                                                            hill, ranch, farm, crazy quilt motifs

intercut

by blur

kaleidoscopic holsteins

 

                                                            in a bedroom, linens, bobbin lace, slur of taffeta slip

 

                        during your low notes, exotic denizens gather                                  

manatees, caribou, komodo dragons

                       

                                    submerged shadow

                                                crocodile, eyeing the bank

 

 

hairpin traveler

            you trawl a world of vibrato green

show us ferns, parrots, moths

                                                                                                then flaunt the curve

ambush us

with your guttural bleat

 

 

 

 

Tumbleweed Fantasia

 

1)

 unfastened by the wind, rootless travelers, you tilt/ swirl/ leap—

lines intersect everywhere, a multiplicity

of windows—

angles constantly opening as you somersault

the horizon

 

                        harmonica/ fiddle/ washboard/ banjo twang—

                                                                                    comprise the manic music

of these trapeze artists/ contortionists

                                    of le cirque de l’west

 

 

2)

you are called garbage/ worse than, even your names, noxious

                        salsola pestifera/ salsola kali/ salsola tragus

 

                                                            what nasty temperament—

persnickety, perverse, pertinacious

 

                        cycloloma atriplicifolium—

            you swashbuckle fences/ walls/ snake across roads

 

                                                            so unlike us?—

you show no self restraint in your mission, the insatiable

desire

to spread seed

 

3)

how many ghost towns have we seen, you—

the only citizens—

sprinting through lonely streets

                                    before the gunfight?

 

                                    your presence, a weird comfort, familiar

                                                                                                as itinerant preacher

                                                                        good/ evil instantly discerned

 

           

                                                                                   

 

no wonder some internet hawkers are promoting you—

                                                prickly panacea/ pugilist pundit, humble amigo—

                                                good for dances/ wedding decor

to remind servicemen

                                    of home

 

 

 

 

This Night 

 

did you choose it     my car floats     a womb of unreality    

 

through storybook streets     so foggy I can hardly see     at the electric company

 

around its metallic storage bunkers     hundreds of lights glimmer     alien doorknobs    

 

nightmare fairyland     remember Grimm’s     how you started each night’s story  

 

 

 once upon a time—

 

 

mile by mile I drive toward the end      enter the nursing home     you lie on your bed

 

a sheet over your body     bruised hands hang out from sides     eyes stare at ceiling    

 

pupils rimmed with frozen coffee     I lean down     my ear almost touches

 

must know for sure     no, no, I don’t hear a—          once upon—

 

 

there was a mother—

 

 

 

 

Dreamcatcher by Stroke

 

 

strings wrap around each other, o logical order

of progression turned upside down—

                                    polyphonic voices proliferate                                     

                                               

tension resides in the webbing—

                                                                        a multiplicity of crisscrosses, strands

                                                            dip, leap—

waves of raw power, dissonance

            to catch dissonance

 

wild turns/ angles on top of angles, atonal

                                                            roller coaster ride

                                                                        something Pollock could have flung out—

 

                                                            irregular pentagon in the center

                                    one long side, others very short

            540 degree ache

sorrow’s strings pulled taut

 

stroke-numbed fingers

                                    shaking with determination/ grit

                                                                                    made this dreamcatcher unique—

hoop/ string/ gray-brown froth of feathers

white beads

 

hangs in my bedroom

                        its potency rivets/ reverberates me—

                                                                         so many mistakes, variance in terrain—

 

a torrent of  hermetic paths

another circuit, almost barren

                        the whole, stark with purpose—

                                                           

                                                                        constant/ consonant peace

                                                resides in this ark’d cacophony—

 

 

 

 

Margaret Walther is a retired librarian from the Denver metro area and a past president of Columbine Poets, an organization to promote poetry in Colorado.  She has been a guest editor for Buffalo Bones, and has poems published or forthcoming in many journals, including Connecticut Review, anderbo.com, Pirene’s Fountain,  Quarterly West, Fugue,  Chickenpinata, Willow Review, Melusine and Nimrod.  Her poem, “Green Shingles,” was a semifinalist in the Naugatuck River Review 2009 Narrative Poetry Contest and her poem, “Stills/ Steals,” won the Many Mountains Moving 2009 Poetry Contest.

----------

If Lucky, You Get All Three

 

 

 

1)

Saltation - 95%

 

tap dance/ un pas de millions

 

parabola/ parable of sand/ capriole word fracas

 

electric field/ negative charge pulls up leap associations—

 

2)

Creep – 4%

 

sand sidestep/ slam dance

 

collisions/ particle waves, metric variations

 

rhythmic progression along the poem’s surface line—

 

3)

Suspension - 1%

 

surreal partita/ metaphor parallel bar leap

 

image gymnast similar in magnitude to wind lift force

 

shimmies from the page, flies—

 

 

 

 

Ode to Za-eeq Al Raml, Shouting Sand

            (not at all like any other instrument we know—Stéphane Douady)

 

 

                        moan/ hum/ roar

o, hermetic singers, residing in ram’s horn dunes—

                                                            you weave intricate patterns, directed by wind—

 

                        millions of particles ricochet, collide,  intone

chants—

                                    galloping horses/ rumble of distant carts/ telegraph line’s wail

 

Sand Mountain in Nevada, a low C

the desert of Mar de Dunas, Chile, an F

Ghord Lahmar, Morocco, G sharp

 

                                    best songs at noon heat—

                       

nomads on the move—

                        one layer of sand

slipping/ shifting

over another, avalanche from the leeward side—

 

elegy?

                         homage to quartz-eyed sirocco gods?

                                                                                    this austere music, one bass note—

 

beautiful/ unnerving

                                                constantly whirling toward home—

                        you reverberate

                                    in the plains of the mind

 

is yours the plea the tortured might raise—

had they voice—

 

 

 

 

Garage Wall, Snow

 

 

arktic madrigal

quadrille of white

on white

 

                                                            on garden rock

                                                                                    winter bread

collects

                         

zen knots/ albino gnats

of longing

                        flick across the window

 

                                                                                    white cello

sleeves owlplumage

on siding

 

winter bees

                        cascade

            from the roof

 

 

                                                                        womb/om of silence

                                                            births cold

                                                                        eros mix

 

                        licks brain

                                    backward to

 

 

 

 

Garage Wall, Mid-afternoon

 

 

impeccable/ implacable         

white knife edge presses/

impresses upon us

                                                                        dismembers soul oh mechanist

 

 

eye sucks into vortex

the mind resists/ trysts              

white wave of despair

eats ganglia

 

 

small shadows under each panel

stare/ staves to

false mandala

of white deception

 

the rites/ riots of indifferent perfection

 

 

unholy silence

white binary caw

of angel/ claw

 

                                                                                    blinds/ binds

                                                            skews the body toward

 

 

 

 

Margaret Walther is a retired librarian from the Denver metro area and a past president of Columbine Poets, an organization to promote poetry in Colorado.  She has been a guest editor for Buffalo Bones, and has poems published or forthcoming in many journals, including Connecticut Review, anderbo.com, Ghoti, Quarterly West, Naugatuck River Review, Chickenpinata, and Nimrod.  She won the Many Mountains Moving 2009 Poetry Contest.