Category: Music

There’s NO Art in Small Talk.

Published on by Tosha Michelle52 Comments

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I hate small talk and how
it always leaves me
syllabically longing.
It’s tedious and exhausting.
It’s hard to get excited
about another conversation
attached to nothing.

I’d rather talk about rare books,
our literary gods,
elevator sex, Lexapro verses,
Wellbutrin,
the friendship between
Elizabeth Bishop
and Robert Lowell,
how sometimes in poetry
the pages weep,
the origins of the word
boeotian (I imagine it
stems from small talk),
how innocence can still thrive
underneath cynicism, and my
innate need to find trouble.

Conversation should be a Safari,
not a trip to the dentist.
It should be like champagne,
shaken and exploding
with bubbly decadence.
It shouldn’t make you feel bad
you haven’t died yet.
It should ravish you and leave you
feeling satiated, weeping
with ecstasy and profound knowledge.

So come sit beside me.
We can move the language
toward enlightenment and
starlight things that help
remind us why we are here.
Or we can beat our tongues
against monotony,
and discuss the weather.
If you choose the latter,
just know I am
dismembering you,
slowly and sadistically,
in my head
one syllable at a time.

-Tosha Michelle

Call. Don’t Answer.

Published on by Tosha Michelle35 Comments

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I sometimes long to be a

name no one answers, a

name that no longer

tolerates humanity. I yearn

to take the wintery chill

of my mind and go off by

myself, to live in a great

empty space, where

the breath of solitude can

falls on me like clouds,

-The only greeting needed

the green grass. I long

to belong to none, to be

elusive as residue.

The sun in my arms,

the only embrace I

need.

Then (as it always is)

Someone asked

“so how you been?”

How quickly the name

answers.

-Tosha Michelle

Wanderlust in Boots.

Published on by Tosha Michelle22 Comments

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In London, I finally

understood to be happy,

I can’ t regret. I can’t

be the ballerina in

a box waiting for

someone to turn

the key, trapped on

a platform of fear.

The key belongs to

me. I am the music.

I chose when I dance.

I discovered this while

navigating my way around

the city.

I became wanderlust in

leather boots, pleasantly,

disoriented by the

history. The city itself

a museum. On my own

for the first time. Alone,

with the wind of my mind.

I started to realize

that this “delicate” little

flower could survive

without water, that it

could grow anywhere.

I didn’t know it then

but my own history

was falling into place

as if Aristotle had flown

in from Greece (by way of

Great Beyond Air) to

help me make sense

of life.

It’s the little things

that change us,

that help us gain

knowledge of ourselves

the self that sometimes

needs to shatter.

Getting lost in

Greenwich Park

Sitting on a bench

unseen in the fog.

The bird that refused

my bread.
(The little bastard)

I swear I heard him chirping

stop trying to be responsible

for fixing everyone

Sitting in a cafe debating

the work of Turner after

visiting the Tate.

Just missing the

train for the airport.

Stopping by the gift

shop selling postcards

of London Bridge and

plastic keychains, making

me realizes I’ve had

enough of disposables.

Waltzing into pubs

and new situations.

Dizzy from dancing.

and finally believing

I knew the steps

Finally understanding

the beauty of missteps.

-Tosha Michelle

On The Clouds Eating His Shadow.

Published on by Tosha Michelle28 Comments

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The clouds drank in ravens

making the pines lucid.

His shadow fell beneath

the sky. If she listened

closely, she could hear

his melodic cadence

delivering soliloquies

adrift on the wind.

He as he was

She as she became

Awake. Aware.

Taking color and form.

Both somewhere between

what was there. What’s

not there. Someone you

remember and can’t

quite forget.

Lost mail on someone

else’s kitchen table.

The parenthesis enclosed.

Time takes away. Gone

in an instant particles

of the past.

She stays.
(She can’t stay)

Tired from this slow

burning off of yesterday.

That which was lost

will not become again.

She always thinks she

see gleams of him,

glimpsed and then gone.

The stem decimated but

drowning in rose petals.

No longer powerless

to the undertow.

His presence merely less,

but no longer wholly more.

His shadow falling,

falling into dust.

The only sound she

hears now is her

voice turning into

an early frost.

To every poem there is

a time and season.

Seasons that coagulate

into lost years.

In this one, she scourges

the past with lyrical ease

The wind no longer

contradicting itself.

Her pen drops ink

of flames, no longer

pointing to the sky.

Dr. Syntax gives her a

lollipop and a clean

bill of conscious.

-Tosha Michelle

Clean

Published on by Tosha Michelle10 Comments

My cover of Taylor Swift’s Clean

https://soundcloud.com/tosha-michelle2020/clean-taylor-swift-cover-piano-and-vocals

“Clean”

“The drought was the very worst
When the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst
It was months, and months of back and forth
You’re still all over me like a wine-stained dress I can’t wear anymore

Hung my head as I lost the war, and the sky turned black like a perfect storm

Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That’s when I could finally breathe
And by morning gone was any trace of you,
I think I am finally clean

There was nothing left to do
When the butterflies turned to dust that covered my whole room
So I punched a hole in the roof
Let the flood carry away all my pictures of you

The water filled my lungs, I screamed so loud but no one heard a thing

Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That’s when I could finally breathe
And by morning, gone was any trace of you,
I think I am finally clean
I think I am finally clean
Said I think I am finally clean

10 months sober, I must admit
Just because you’re clean don’t mean you don’t miss it
10 months older, I won’t give in
Now that I’m clean I’m never gonna risk it

The drought was the very worst
When the flowers that we’d grown together died of thirst

Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That’s when I could finally breathe
And by morning gone was any trace of you,
I think I am finally clean

Rain came pouring down when I was drowning
That’s when I could finally breathe
And by morning gone was any trace of you
I think I am finally clean
Finally clean
Think I’m finally clean
Think I’m finally clean”

Random Wisdom

Published on by Tosha Michelle10 Comments

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“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

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“Your Song”

Published on by Tosha Michelle17 Comments

I’d be honored if you would listen to my rendition of Elton John’s “Your Song” I recorded this with someone special mind. Perhaps, that someone was you.

Listen to “Your Song” by Tosha Michelle 2020 #np on #SoundCloud

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She always wanted more…more chocolates…more books…more shoes…more solitude..more anarchy.. more peace.. more calm…more chaos ..more sex…more time…. more love…more stability….more heaven…more hell….more poetry… more J’s…Jon Stewart…..Jimmy Fallon…jolly rancher’s…Josie..
.more Lana Del Ray….more BBC America… more…more… more ..more…more…until there was no more.. until all the more had been used up…ingested, consumed, spent, thrown away…and more became less…and less became so much more…

Tosha Michelle

MUSIC

Published on by Tosha Michelle3 Comments

Music--Crazy-Fingers--Piano-Keyboard_art

MUSIC by Charles Baudelaire

MUSIC doth uplift me like a sea
Towards my planet pale,
Then through dark fogs or heaven’s infinity
I lift my wandering sail.

With breast advanced, drinking the winds that flee,
And through the cordage wail,
I mount the hurrying waves night hides from me
Beneath her sombre veil.

I feel the tremblings of all passions known
To ships before the breeze;
Cradled by gentle winds, or tempest-blown

I pass the abysmal seas
That are, when calm, the mirror level and fair
Of my despair!