Scribble and Strum

I spent all of last night working on a pretty serious song I'm calling "Mom". It has to do with some recent revelations about my birth mother -- frankly, an exhausting subject to explore. This morning I made a little more progress with it, then put it down for later. "Mom" may take a while. I then fiddled around in a more playful and mood-positive manner, and what came out was "Beta-Blocker", a light look at medicating stage fright. Below are the lyrics. I, of course, would love to record it. Ha. It's interesting how creativity shifts, and how some songs need more emotional investment and time than others.

Beta-Blocker
I'm three quarters out and
Feeling hollow when I hit the stage
Now the fourth wall's a window
And I'm feeling like I'm in a cage
My fingertips are sweaty and I'm
The focus of a thousand ears
Now I'm kicking myself because
I didn't have that couple of beers

*I need a little something
To be the alpha that I know I am
I need a beta-blocker
And a doctor who don't give a damn

I paid my dues to the
Society for Timid Souls
Now I definitely regret it - I think
Their method has a couple of holes
Because it's not those around me
That make me shaky, make my knees grow weak
It's the inferior interior
In theory, it's my weary physique

*I need a little something
To calm my nerves and keep my focus tight
I need a beta-blocker
So I can rock this little room tonight

+A beta-blocker
It's gonna get me through this
(No worry, no more)
A beta-blocker
Is gonna let me do this...
(That's what they're for)

Had an insomniac night; spent it in and out of sleep. I haven't had a night like that in a while -- it reminded me of more stressful days. Here's a set of lyrics from those days, reflective of where I am now. Sigh. This song still needs to be recorded (they all do), and it may be for the next collection (which is nowhere near completion).

Aquarium

________________
Hmm. That phrase "let me out" recently popped out of me in a more recent (March) song. Here are its lyrics (why not?):

Let Me Out

________________
Hmm hmm. Here "buried" and "slept till summer" are direct references to another older song of mine -- "Sleep Till Summer" from a low, low point. Below are its lyrics. This one I do have a recording for, but...

Sleep Till Summer


________________
Oh, old feelings. Good to get them out. Good morning, good day, good riddance.

Sitting still at a time before night
When even the dimmest glow seems bright
Orange windows, a yellow streetlight
Compete with the glow of a sunset

Each skybus lumbers a dinosaur
Roaring and rolling 'til skyward they soar
Jewel water shifts as a tread made for war
Traced by the air's design

A frigid quilt for a tired sun
Seeps into the layer I have on
The skin is thin, but I'm not done
I gird with another green cloth

Behind me, on rise: springtime silhouettes
Of children's joy and the tinny breaths
Of a tin can train, dwarfed by these jets --
Dragons across the bay

And there sits Boston: cherry tipped-dominoes
Distant and silent, shapes in a puppet show,
A shade of permanence, a place from which to go
Nothing, just darkness and light

Stars emerge as grains of sand slung
Farther than archer has ever flung
Toward an indigo dome, pushed and then hung
Like tacks in a bulletin board

The sun now sleeps as the bay implies,
But life still looms in bold white eyes
Panwater, a roost for steel that flies
With wings, and skin, and fire

Woke up, wrote a song. That felt good.
I'm in a lucky empty house today, so maybe I'll be able to record it.

Spring Thing
Falling up from show to show
To party then parade
Spring has sprung and I'm a lung --
Let's sit and write about it

Expelling morning particles
From the tender bed of dust
I'll trust that's just a modern must --
I couldn't do without it

*I open every window
Delete my memories
The hardest part's to keep the heart
This warm in winter freeze

Starting up the motor
The directive and the dream
No ice? That's nice, it will suffice --
My life is up and running

The beauty and the blooming
The birds rebuilding trees
The role of solar-in-control --
Seems everyone is sunning

*So open every window
Retrain my memories
The easy part's about to start:
To tame the April tease

*Open every window
Mind and heart, at least one eye
Let's sing of spring and everything
As it goes growing by

I finished writing a song yesterday. I hope to record it soon.
I'm still in a sharing mood, so here are the lyrics.
I think they're better served with their music;
that's a big difference between music and poetry.
Some words are better sung than said, better heard than read:

You Are Not Me
So many people don't know where they are
Or where they're going to go
I'm one of these folks I know
(We're lost, lonely animals)
I hear your bloody fable
New from old, the vintage from the vine
Well, your advantages aren't mine

They're not mine -- how could they ever be?
We all have our own stories
And while I value allegory...

*Just don't tell me who to be
'Cause you are not me
Yeah, I see wisdom on your tree
Still, you are not me

Another problem rears its ugly head
And I'm thankful for the ear
It's not the same when you're not here
(Our time is so valuable)
These howls within me lack a
Harmony -- they echo there, alone
Till you provide the other tone

Another tone, another way to breathe
Your pounding rhythm heart
Can play the steady part, but...

*Just don't tell me who to be
'Cause you are not me
Yeah, yours is clever melody
Still, you are not me

+And while sometimes I wish
Another soul would carve me out of stone
This is my life to break!

Every mistake makes me an ancient plea:
"Make peace with what you've lost,
Count every mile you've crossed"...

*So don't tell me who to be
'Cause you are not me
We're nothing if we are not free
And you are not me

Just don't tell me...
You are not me...

Far corner of stone, as hard as a cyst
There, hands held open are curled into fists
Parties still gather to plead to the son
Who carries his father down the mountain
With distance some laugh, but I'm willing to bet
That laugh thins with trouble the closer you get
To no man's land and its cold facades,
Hollow houses and dwindling odds

It's been stalking me for years,
so I've made preparations --
a tower built
so high that
I've lost its foundations.

I've locked a lot of doors,
and sealed tight every window.
To sequester's best,
it protects the rest...
I had to let you in, though.

Good one by Bukowski, Charles.

your life is your life
don't let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can't beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Noise is for writing,
Not reading or thinking.
Her laughter is biting

And reverberating
Off a truck-filled window;
Mocking me, hating

The book I can't read.
I want her to leave,
Give the silence I need

To finish one chapter
Of Unbearable Lightness.
Do you think if I tapped her

Trundle teen shoulder
She'd stitch lip and whisper,
Or grow suddenly colder?

Either way there'd be quiet,
Maybe one chapter wide.
No, she'd likely defy it,

One reader's request.
It's no library, public--
There's no place to rest.

Found this in the recent New Yorker.
I love poems like these.

Thread

I lack the rigor of a lightning bolt,
the weight of an anchor. I am
frayed where it would be highly useful—
and this I feel perpetually—to make a point.

I think if I can concentrate I might turn sharp.
Only, I don’t know how to concentrate—
I know only the look of someone concentrating,
indistinguishable from nearsightedness.

It is hard for you to be near me,
my silly intensity shuffling
all the insignia of interiority.
Knowing me never made anyone a needle.

Great piece. Mmm. The hidden monologues of unnoticed things.

Great poem, is all.

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Am I a songwriter?
Do I write songs?
Do my thoughts cling and linger?
Are they sturdy and strong?

When I put pen to paper
Do the words, as they flow,
Approximate gravity
Do they tug and let go?

What of a songwriter?
Is there purpose in wit,
Declarations, and daring
Cries of "beauty" and "shit"?

In my memories' melodies,
Rhythms, and tones,
Can I carry humanity,
Put meat on its bones?

What is a songwriter?
One who nourishes souls?
Or is it all for distraction--
Does one dare to draw goals?

I am a songwriter
I don't care or know why
My purpose is simple--
To make music, then die

Oh, this wit, oh, celebrity--
My reason to live, to want, to be
To watch your dance, bask in your style,
Compare two depths distinct, servile.

Oh, these lights, oh, projection--
A voice twice filtered by desire.
Gauzy notions, hung humid air,
Distort what heights were never there.

Oh, the gallery, oh, this audience--
Eyes afire, alive with dream,
All solipsistic elevation;
A million martyrs for the meme.

At the bar, at the party,
Where fives and families are high,
The game or the music is important,
The siren a trivial cry

The cool door was pulled
Open and pushed into hand
Is a pull-tab potable dripping cold water,
Perspiring like in TV Land.

The drugs go down easy,
Settle slow, softly, in blood.
Hours. Hazy hates varicose veins,
Would whim-wipe 'em out if it could.

It could, yeah, it should--
They're rivers of anarchy, wax down a skirt.
Queasy ass-queries, choleric questions
Boast knives, lies, smiles, and hurt.

Her, hurt.
Blur.
Her.
Hurt.

Hurt, how? Home now.
Knees on veined tiles, temple to hand.
Severe, several, an everyday devil
Perspiring. Like in TV Land.

Look what you did! You stepped on it!
My moon! My moon! Now what will I do?
Who will guide me? That's not a who!
Now that's a that! Now it's a there,
A place! What's next? What who, which whom
Will you discover, disect, crush flat?
My moon! My moon! You took my moon!
It lived in my pocket. It lived! It smiled!
There was a man in it, in her! She's gone!
I heard she had a rabbit hutch!
My moon! My moon! Now what will I do?
Next you'll make this an egg, just dye and die!

Here's "The Red Fox Fur Coat", a favorite story of mine, first heard on Selected Shorts about a year ago in the episode "What do Women Want?". Go here for the reading; it's first story of the show. (Then, I recommend sticking around for John Updike's "Wife Wooing" growled lustily by Alec Baldwin, and Katherine Mansfield's eerie "The Woman At the Store" acted by Peter Gerety. Yeah, that was a gooood episode.)

( The text... )

Tumbling rough and tumbling round,
Splashing in the mucky stuff
Gasping grand, rasping rags
Churning, turning in the slough

Import settles on the surface,
Notes and niveous nettling jots
Jetsam swevens bob and glimmer,
Flotsam when the dross unclots

Rumbling in the bumbling brainpan,
Random for the lucky rush
All ensconced, poured, established
Some are face-up for the flush

Exported for bed and burnished,
Notes and icy shining shots
Set in heavens, hopes and dimmer,
Totems for the teeming tots

I'm reading a collection of short stories by Russell Banks entitled The Angel on the Rooftop. Excellent, poignant stuff. I was drawn to the collection after hearing a podcast reading of this story:

Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story
by Russell Banks

1

TO BEGIN, then, here is a scene in which I am the man and my friend Sarah Cole is the woman. I don't mind describing it now, because I'm a decade older and don't look the same now as I did then, and Sarah is dead. That is to say, on hearing this story you might think me vain if I looked the same now as I did then, because I must tell you that I was extremely handsome then. And if Sarah were not dead, you'd think I were cruel, for I must tell you that Sarah was very homely. In fact, she was the homeliest woman I have ever known. Personally, I mean. I've seen a few women who were more unattractive than Sarah, but they were clearly freaks of nature or had been badly injured or had been victimized by some grotesque, disfiguring disease. Sarah, however, was quite normal, and I knew her well, because for three and a half months we were lovers.

( Here is the scene... )

Mmm. I've read the piece two or three times, now, and it hits and lingers with me each time.

Whatever that means.
Here's a poem of hers I like:

Turtle
Who would be a turtle who could help it?
A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,
She can ill afford the chances she must take
In rowing toward the grasses that she eats.
Her track is graceless, like dragging
A packing-case places, and almost any slope
Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,
She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way
To something edible. With everything optimal,
She skirts the ditch which would convert
Her shell into a serving dish. She lives
Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
Will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
The sport of truly chastened things.

"So where? Where would you go?" The woman rested her chin on her fingers. How beautiful, Gerry thought. That is a perfect face. He poured some cream into his coffee and gave the question some thought.

"Gee, I don't know. I mean, I never really gave it any thought. There are just so many. Places, I mean. Sometimes, I think 'Why would I ever want to leave New York? This is New York! THE city, you know? Other times, this place gets me so frustrated I think, 'You'd better get me a ticket out of here, pal, or I'm going to burn something down!'" He laughed, gave his coffee a stir, and stared out the diner's window. Beyond his reflection was the familiar street-crew paving on a bright, busy, summer day. They'd been working outside the eatery for two weeks. "You know? You know what I mean?"

The woman nodded and smiled, and Gerry returned his attention. "Well, if you just had to leave," she explained. "Had to. Let's say you were on the lam. For arson! Ha! Where would you escape to?"

"Huh. Well, my family--great-granddad and them--are from England, so I guess I'd go there." Gerry rubbed his neck and looked down into his sandwich, suddenly growing a little uneasy at the admission and attention he was giving this person. They really hadn't known each other for long.

"Ah... So London, then! Big Ben! Buckingham Palace!"

Gerry shook his head and smiled. Sure feels like I've known her for years. "Ha--no, no. Too big, too big. Ha, ha. My family's from one of the littler places like, um... Pickle-shire or something like that."

"Pick--PICKLEshire?!"

The woman laughed loudly and snorted, which drew attention and disapproving
looks from the elderly a few tables away--the diner's only other pair of customers. Damn, that's a gorgeous laugh. Gerry shrugged shyly, chuckled humbly at his gaffe, then lifted his spoon and affected an air of false haughtiness. "Yeah, ha. Pickleshire, England: A most, um, well-preserved village."

"What? Wha--oh! Hahaha..." The woman let out a grand, girlish laugh at this and pounded the table jovially. Silverware jumped and clattered, coffee splashed. The older couple was not amused. The woman excused herself from the table as she dabbed her teary cheeks with a napkin. "Well-preserved...ha, hmm." She smiled, got up and smoothed her dress, then headed toward the restroom, hip-brushing Gerry's shoulder on the way by.

Gerry sipped his coffee and sighed. God-damn, she's attractive. And smart. Seems young. She laughed at that crap joke? I wonder, is there a chance of... No, no. Wait... Do I have a chance here? No... No. NO, Gerry. With a heft of breath he gazed out the window. At the street crew, his sorry job framed oddly in the image of his face--the weathered mask of a single, lonely, fifty-year old man. That's you, Gerry. That's your family. He glanced at his watch: 2:24. "Damn it". Wiped his mouth. Drummed his fingers. Lunch break was nearly over, he realized, and soon he'd have to get back on the jackhammer or help Hutch with the mixer. Mr. Sandler had said he needed all the overtime he could squeeze out of him this week... No time. Never enough time. Gerry looked at the old folks at their corner table, silently chewing their meal and sharing a scowl at some slight he couldn't figure. He measured the man's gnarled, overworked hands as they shakily held down and sliced an omelet, just barely clinging to their purpose. "Damn. Wouldn't want to be that guy."

Wait. Gerry looked at his hands. AM I that guy? Gerry sat rapt for another minute, turning his palms over again slowly. He then quickly brushed their callouses over the legs of his jeans and snapped out of reverie.

Gerry smiled.

"No. There is time."

Soon, there was the comforting click of heels. Gerry erected a grin and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the young, mysterious woman who'd chosen, out of the blue, to eat her lunch with him. Instead was their soggy waitress Harriet, who smiled, jabbed a slip of paper into his chest, then nudged her head toward the exit.

"Here's your bill, sugar." She chuckled with a forced spunk, habitual and dry. Harriet wasn't fooling anyone and she knew it. Didn't care. Couldn't, not anymore. "Lady had a rush in her, huh? Haha... She ran outta here pretty quick! Hoo, you musta said somethin' to get to her, right?" She nodded. "Mmm-hmm. For sure. Somethin' real baaad. That musta been some dirty joke, Gerry! Hahaha!" Her joints cracked.

"Dirty joke? Wait, what? She's gone?"