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| Stacatto City |
The prompt for today is:
As with pretty much any discipline, music and art have their own vocabulary. Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word. For (imaginary) extra credit, work in a phrase from, or a reference to, the Florentine Codex.
And here is my poem:
Staccato Cityscape
I wander through this concrete fugue,
the abstract pulse of buildings against sky,
their edges dissolving in afternoon haze—
a cityscape dissolving into raw chroma,
bleeding vermilion at the edges of my memory.
Each window catches light in diminuendo,
glass fragments reflecting what we've lost
between the sharp interstices of presence.
I trace the skyline with trembling fingers
as if reading ancient codices of stone and steel.
The city's heartbeat—rubato—rushing then slowing,
like breaths caught between strangers
passing on crowded streets. We brush shoulders,
exchange particles of ourselves,
tiny universes of what-might-have-been.
In this cacophony of concrete and desire,
I am crescendo and decrescendo,
sound waves breaking against the shore
of my own longing—for what?
These buildings rising like prayers or lamentations.
Memory blooms in unexpected corners,
fragments of color divorced from form,
as if the Florentine scribes had documented
not conquest, but the way light falls
across your sleeping face at dawn.
