VOCALFINAL

we
bouquet then, then
we spirit in our senses
scent as body one

can
fathom in its
tangible sigh, ex-

hale
while hailing
bass’ inflective

teaching
intersecting our
onward career

together
-ness

Of this Momentum Song (eight)

We’re here but arriving
later, later: this
requisite rest is skill-building

for
the sun of our early
smiles… we’re here—
we hear west of

us
in early morning trees
harps searching into wind
into our combined
hear

-ing and late
arrival wearing
unjaded smiles…

finding what frames
us
in the harp of this hour’s
search, a selection of prose
from exterior thoughts
of

dreams displayed
in the interior
of last night’s
visceral cinema-
tog
-raphy

…some nights I hold onto
the mirroring memory of your
holding me… most

nights
a collaboration
of holding lung
with both hands

internal
to form and the sharing
shape we inform through
corporeal freedoms
fringed

to the edge of
this movement, we
piano to play

within
to echo-serenade us—
us in the transvaluing

of modern duos,
two

in the partition
in the relay
admitting self in the
selves better rep
-resents patterned

participation
more so song than
whisper, more than
voice these bodies
braiding
and
never to be

disentangled

Of this Momentum Song (nine)

Near here
but far from where

we enwrapped silences, touched
spine
-spine (we talk well this
position
-al way) body and the
flesh

we speak upon,
within, where as

solid breaths

hold and dedicate
hands

to the pianoing
of our lyric and

conjunctive
habits

crisscrossing tongued
diagrams pledging and
reminding why words

weigh more than
crows’
wandering, pushing
down
to elevate as with wing

and human warmth—
collected sounds
surrounding

skin and wavering
from where we

were moments

ago

pulsing, praying
rhythm-singing

serialism
hoping

into this day’s
courage to continue
to encompass

what

soothes and does
not fade nor fabricate

from tongues’
unorthodox
systems of
dismissive

be
-longing

Of this Momentum Song (ten)
___________________
When you hear music,
after it’s over, it’s gone,
in the air, you can never
capture it again.
—Eric Dolphy

Thereabout a
nature recommended,

a nature spelled
to grasp in momentary

season—
and while it’s
good we
keep strict time,

time as function
is more so

deliberate
when we reply
with words more
so than calculated

panic…

to not grasp, this
function is unholy, a

hell we too come
upon

pointed prevalence
toward assessed mis
-placing, theme

and
the promise of misery—
we look to be kind
kind toward what
human
is and human holds,
what strongly holds and
we mantra to
expose

human need
to respond and

react—to
echo

-ing repetition, sound
-in sound, sound
as music we hear in

brief inventive movements,
we watch into what
fades

configures and redefines
a

circling of cycled
memory, body of equal

mass, harmony
infusion

a saxophoning meander
near the road flute

blends
behavior of our
isolated

hands

Of this Momentum Song (nearly eleven)

Seen how we

sing they did not
rush did not run. They stood.
Some
sat some stared
at our momentary

tongues, our tonal
shallow
waters washing
over with clear
sounding

singing
a sort of asymmetry
a fathom of malleable
motivation to
pivot

to become
later than this
moment of watching
our
not noticing…

Of this Momentum Song (eleven)

Along this coast
our travels speak
our hands our feet

follow
our voices postdate
guidance of gray

_______________________

we
follow where

rain
forms us, antithesis
to those watching
waiting for sun’s

clarity
on skin through
windows and natural

articulation

_______________________

we walk along this
coast of disparate
cultures, clear

endurances
unravelling

among us, interior
to these languages
of rain of hours’

waiting
on our movement, we’ve
nurture in palm, palm
as hopeful emblem as

blues as foundation
turquoise halos horizontal

on
fingers wading we wander though
with aim aiming at
alarms around our

thorough

rain

-ing, the above
circumstance, sailing

this coast we aim
with bodybridge extent

collaborating
coaxing within hours’
internal theories
thawed all the way

through

we thorough, thinking
past historical lament

-ations, we culture we
cultivate in this

California
climate, we engage
we bass to portend

tomorrow’s rhythm to
piano early, we cymbal

to follow crows’ archi
-tectural freedoms, to

experiment with splays—
we

-‘ve never stagnated
unless to rest and watch

how these portions of sand
sit

into the feet, leaving pale
shadows curious

until
turquoise hands horizontal

their whispering silhouettes
and we engage then disband

toward
where next is the element

of asymmetrical
music’s abstract

-ions

we follow and fulfill uninterrupted

Of this Momentum Song (twelve)

Today
I arrived to resting late—
your resting already a

simmering early constant. I
spoke

with knowing
your voice

was shaping
elsewhere:

with hands: of hands:
simultaneous

pushpull
-inging engaging with
what I did not
fully find within

closed

eyes or theory of how
death no longer

allows eyes to assemble
crows

breaking into splayed
quarters following

multiple drafts of
mur

-muration… leaving
you to rest was to
indicate solo rhythm
—mine—

was to drum
exterior to this
now… your resting
invited the slow curl

of an hour’s radial
rendition, I

paused
to ensure its language
hid well into my mouth,
my mouth a wandering
hand to gather
what is discarded

farther
from other mouths, hands and

passions I listen

to paraphrase in my learning
languages in learning
the tongue to awaken
you
soft as hands, hands
soft from shaping
mouths and internal
composition…

Of this Momentum Song (thirteen)
When you taught me
confianza means trust I

left its warmth
on

my tongue to
parallel its purpose

said
what splays to
inspire and to say what

inspires
you teach, is
to say does not
splay solely returns

too, and too, to say

what you taught
haunts in the soothe
the pianoing secure
tight walking top to
bottom across tongue

recalling

breathing is found when
the body burns, exhaled fathoms

—the body bends
not

of pain, not…
the circumference

you’ve traced with
mouthed teaching

with purpose and
portending

an acclimation my
body needs to

examine silence.
I

insert staying this
warmth is too good

not
to

trust
not

to
inform

my allegory of stilled
learning

Of this Momentum Song (fourteen)

Toward where we’re
going is what welcomed

our initial trance:
filled

with how moments
ignite into the face, a

plagiarized breeze
a

chant a perimeter
of warmth wearing us
wandering within
our calm’s moving

—into
chant and the repeat
structure our heads

our hands chant
our
melodies stream,
we barefoot to feel
below
or|and to the west
of what welcomes us,
strands hold together
rebuses

and we read
shapes, more so

clearly: we shape
what sees us coming…

the
philosophy of mo
-mentum, thrusts,

parries, we sidestep
partitions of saddened

shapes, colors of this
March

to see into outer
prose, erased
fragmented

physics
onto which leads us,
a hoping array of
shadows and how

we leap is too, where
bodies bend to
assimilate, internal shapes

articulating
voices to where we become
and
instilled going we inherit

in our symmetry

Of this Momentum Song (fifteen)

You speak into
what is narrating us—

a
window of woven
words opens into an
hour of this morning’s
radial activity… how

we’ve
built our bones:
other bodies rely
on the rain of variant

collages
gray then grayer more
stilled into a paused

inverted ceiling,
the

all of it the need
of it— we’ve become

a collaboration, drums,
piano, a splurge of

direction
-al spectrum of it, made

of grace each tongue
speaking us into our

movement
our light is warm light,
mouths sustain
how the tongue
has rescued us

myriad
rotations, we’ve
halos in the hand
mapping the palms’

lines and linear
we become
open

-into ground’s
layered shapes and
calligram structures

—our breaths mimic
within the cold

vacuum outer to
the

warmth settled into

wonder the map
of our palms

dreamt in its
leading our care
-ful experimentation

and

splaying this late night
light of reflectional

sacred

and
rotational

wonder
this
movement

of experiential

recovery

Of this Momentum Song (sixteen)

___________________
Music expresses that which cannot be put
into words and that which cannot remain silent.

—Victor Hugo

We came into what
knowing is, what was
is knowing music

now,
adamant speech
speaks conviction
not fractioned,

%
is theory the mind

hides as to why
summer’s warmth

is both measured
by beach and the season
-al visitations bending in
-to annual origami—

hand
strums these angled

strands of dangled
smoke, the rise-twirl

ballerina-blend
unburned—

then [when] heat
ends where we’ve

already remained
something

breathes beyond
how the dead
affects our
moving in

all
directions… this
is why we reset

when rest
unfastens for

faith
and chance to

deposit calm

ahead of what
calls

us to map and sway
rhythm-faith

entanglement,
the

soothe, a glissando
unblocked synonym
for

space
and holding what
held our own
diagrams of

overt
beginnings

Of this Momentum Song (seventeen)

An ache birthed us
—births us all, all
in hand, once then

again later the
resemblance

now only in name
and figments

from where the mirror
names physiognomy
slightly larger

layered
static compulsive experi
-ential motives to exist
when language pushes
against
the agony of our tongues.

Said once “morning is
what haunts following a

death’s unexcused
presence”,

then heard what
the dragonfly scattered

into the alphabet
of

dangling air
vanish,
and from where we
sit we stand to lose
nothing but
never in this lifetime…
—the body is only
mass until the eyes’
final conceal, death
hides within untold

secrets.
This is what blends
what bends when
alone… what then we

will never scan
…the ocular
system
misquotes when shut
-down, when pleasure

of shapes plagiarize
the

dragonfly’s philosophy
of fade, and
the body cannot respond

cannot
breed within the silence
occupying brief
and aging paradigms—

rest,
we must symphony
must evaporate

landing

later where of
an hour’s focused

heal blends
into

gathering tone and
the pianoing of

morning’s multi
-lingual

virtue

Of this Momentum Song (nearly eighteen)

In remembering,
my mirror carried

me into spaced
syllables

hiding me well.
Well, then enough to

position me where
arches reach

as with arms to warm
the

spirit in which is
shattered, tarred
hope the hope for

returning to
harmonies. Of spring

invitation
pastel and the whispered
focus of annual alteration.

I’ve shattered
here

more
than

what promises
is what promotes

the body and
configured

reputation—

Of this Momentum Song (eighteen)

What rumbles? The
foot lifts, equates
the math’s silence

down
the other, lifts
down, the rhythm
is continuum

from
where the ghosts
lead and interact
within what leads
our attempts at

belonging
somewhere
here
over

what redeems
the culture of our

hiding, a chorus
of chants softens

abridges
dazes exhibits
moves us when our
movement slides
a backslide rhythm—
perhaps the drown
-ing of past chronicles

collides a symbol
such as open hands

the wanting cannot
wait

waiting is disaster
breeding death’s
reliance bodies

counting
down, each foot
then rises, the math’s

silence comprehends
as

how death divides pain
equally among the living
a cruelty of examining
face and the spine’s

auto
-matic lean, the breaking
the bending suspends

into allegory not
yet ready to be read

the prose can be cruel

____________________
can be unheard when

a
____________________

diameter of sound drowned
what occurred in the past

toward heal and the ensuing
pink rise
of

scar’s
concentrated

faith in how
the skin will never
fade
into winged
articulation

Of this Momentum Song (nineteen)

“Because to box
in would be irrelevant”, we
rode what would
be minutes splaying

into hours of
mobile rhythms…

fell
from now to open
now’s scope of
freed eventual

silences…
this

is how we’ve adhered
to philosophy, uncover
what holds presence
beneath what the selling

point breathes in
-to the topography

of pretty formulas—
and when the praying
form synonyms, what

comes to parallel
the tongue-sound

engrains finding
open space whirls

amid the mouth’s
natural occurrences?

What
falls is whom recovers—
all hands in catches
when we shook their

hands to envelope
the humaning range

of what rolls to
confirm

what contains to
time its sound and

mouthing of whisper—
to

ritual is to re
-examine a horror, to
redistribute its

grasp toward
what empties

and

hopes to end how
hands cannot redefine

their death their
knowing of demise

whole already there
not

afraid but flailing
to unfast
-en
to
unravel before eyes
realize dimension
coaxes shape from

clusters,
to whole patterns the

end is devout
is a blended memory
mouthing itself to to
-mmorow’s healing,

extracted
freedoms…

Of this Momentum song (twenty)

Gone from what

met our going. Down
here we begin descend
a
staircase clear
as the window watching

what we do. What
we
wear we ghost in
natural fading…
how we sudden is

genetic happenstance
clutching
name to recall birth’s
reason, birth’s singing
to variant body

positioning, pulling,
pausing, insisting
what
draws us what dares
us is what shadows

would insert if space
and dimension allowed
cultural clarity amid
grayed definitional
lines…

____________________
within lines, as to insist it’s

of lines then, the crow
traced how we move,
unraveled the lang
-uage of what we

moved,
what fell is
never distinct and
used to define
purpose plus

what contradicts
what

weeps when alone
what smiles when

synonyms of shapes
visit in trepidation—
____________________

we’re larger here
here as home

home as the
larger image

instilled
…and what promises
is a worded braid un
-broken, fastened high
volume

with
voice

and tongue same and
antithetical to the
woven listening
a child stretches

over
meaning’s virtue, mean
-ing’s culture of oscillated

anamnesis

Of this Momentum song (twenty-one)
_______________
A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm
themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke

―Vincent van Gogh

Again, awoken, melody
of an hour’s writing
soothe-pulls direction
pushing play
into

purpose of why pulsing

pulls from distance
distance as memory,
the
dead, not discarded

opens among the window’s
silence hides from
within
clarity of mouth
mouth as momentum
with enough versions
continu

-ing to read to us…
we listen to learn

learn as diagramed
precise occultation

we’re protected
here

here as paradigm
a home to query
and never but
fully return

toward…

this is the word
hearing others’
speech demonstrates

as

wandering wears our
pivots, our ballet
reinterpretations

smooth

as to live the way
pianoing ensures us

privileges us through
listening as virtuous
grade and fulfilled

oscillatory blend
of

eyes and the purpose
they invent prag
-matic perception…

we
drum to encourage
faith in the sound
inviting stay and

gradational minds
to

fold-in, to crease
as to keep what
stays within us

us

as with nothing other
we hold these hands

the way morning
awakens to

evoke

what the dead
writes into

what hears
what breathes
at capacity, prior

to
illusion under
-standing our song’s

unified
animation

Of this Momentum Song (twenty-two)

We’ve learned staying
says

the body rejoins fuller
following space’s
comfort from curated
anxiety,
how it spells surnames
attaching meaning to
bodies and relative
acclimation—
we’ve been here

prior, the pulses
know our fathoms
know

our devotions started
in singular splays from

syllables stretched to
allow inorganic melod
-ies
to bend to invert to
blend to invite a
contained move
-ment
meant to trio with
our intentional solos
—our flail from spine in
how
the wing of us draw
-s mention from the
gray of death to
enliven our awakening
to

engage with conviction
where we’re going says

drums will never myth
will always mirage

to
fool what follows

with halved intentions
with lined meaning

blurred
while our clarity
warms what we’re

amid in exhaled
contours and the way

this crow danced in praise to
an hours’ cultivated
euphony
we’ve kept this sweet
momentum stuck

into the pocket, strong
within
know
-ing how we move is
serial in tradition, blowing
signaled affection to
the dead, not discarded
using
Song

to hurry us…

to
immingle

what surrounds
in the periphery of

devoted
symmetry among

architectural

acculturation

Of this Momentum Song (twenty-three)

Near here, death has occurred—
we cannot move through
it: we flail we shadow

we
become what haunts
in the language of
discontent’s motive.

A
family has fallen
a handful of desires
have been interrup
-ted what was built

is
crumbling by hands
whose memory will
not recall strength
and partition or

within
now where do survivors
envelope what wants
to hold and designate
(as to not fraction

emotion) emblems
of

skin and the purpose
flesh has on the whole
-ness of experiential
acclimation, —what

hides is more so
promises than more than
language unfastening
at the hinge level

of labels’ cursed
interpretations…

but what is level is
cursed: each handmade
ghost assembles
grayed language blued
to show cultural contact

a

sadness is future over
-whelming what plagiarizes
mourning, an emotional
insertion of others’
paranormal motives why

when
why then do so many
fall without faint but

with full absence
their

mouths are inactive
bees, tamed, tired an

eclipse of
missing

agony’s misguided
grimace



Felino A. Soriano directs
supported living and
independent living

programs providing
supports for adults with
developmental
disabilities. His poems
have been nominated for
The Best of the Net
Anthology and Pushcart
Prize. He has authored 66
print and electronic
collections of poetry,
including Of isolated
limning (Fowlpox Press,
2014), Mathematics
(Nostrovia! Poetry, 2014),
Espials (Fowlpox Press,
2014), and watching what
invents perception
(WISH Publications,
2013). Over 4,500 of his
poems have been
accepted for publication,
in both online and print
publications since 2006.
In 2009 he founded
Counterexample Poetics,
an online journal of
experimental artistry,
and in 2014 he founded
Of/with: journal of
immanent renditions, a
biannual online journal.
Philosophical studies
collocated with his
connection to various
idioms of jazz explains
motivation for poetic
occurrences.

"Felino A. Soriano is one of the very few contemporary poets possessive of what seems to an instant
access to brilliance. He has truly created his own unique style and language unto itself. He is, in my
opinion, the greatest poet of his generation."

--Heath Brougher, Poet

“Vocal Apparitions spans Felino's earliest creations up to his more recent lyrical verse. These exemplary
poems are part of a great minimalist tradition that includes ee cummings and William Carlos Williams.
Soriano refurbishes phrase with delicate wisdom and refinement. His influence on contemporary writing
is defined by his deft insight into a new language that values intimacy and experimentation. He
continually reinvents himself with the rhythms of speech and emotional equipoise.”

--Irene Koronas, author of Turtle Grass and Managing Editor of X-Peri

“Finally, with Vocal Apparitions, we have a selection of Felino A. Soriano’s marvelously intriguing poems
all together. These poems truly bear close reading, revealing both the patterns of his body of work and
each work’s singularity. I want to meditate on them and learn what they disclose. Felino is especially
known for his love of jazz. Reading his poems will give you a new perspective on this music, one which
emphasizes musicality and physicality, rather than biography. He turns instruments like piano, drums,
and bass into verbs. From first to last, it is rewarding to see how his work evolves, moving from
observation to intimacy.”

--Marianne Szlyk, Professor at Montgomery College, author of Listening to Electric Cambodia

“Felino A. Soriano is on a chronic quest to translate the patently elusive into language that has a deceptive
intangibility but is actually primevally palpable. Music is his muse; nay, music is his being, and words are
his instrument”!

--Alison Ross/Publisher and Editor, Clockwise Cat

“Sonic nomenclature thusly prescribed ascends toward the gleaming zenith while connected to our
collective nadir.”

--Erik Blagsvedt, author of The Long Lightning

Fowlpox Press www.fowlpoxpress.ca

Poetry / Literature