Writing

Stuff that I have written.

The Sunday Poem: Diminuendo

 Posted by (Visited 6143 times)  The Sunday Poem
Dec 172007
 

Our control over so much of our musical performance is indirect. The subtleties can be great — a slight variation in the pace of a melody, a minor variation in the force with which we tap or pull or blow. In those gaps lies artistry. The difference between bowing one way or another on a violin; a fraction of an inch’s difference in how we rest our foot upon the piano’s pedal.

Without this, the music lacks humanity. But sound lacks humanity, intrinsically. Sound is oscillation. We are shaping vibrations in the air much like we might plane wood, to give the arched back of a chair a smoother curve. In the end, is it the grain of the wood we admire, or its shaping? Is it the majesty of harmony built into nature, or is it the humanity we see through the gaps in the intervals?

Diminuendo

Suppose you plucked a string,
And made the silly sound thing
Play a tune and learn to sing.

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The Sunday Poem: I Saw and Heard

 Posted by (Visited 4330 times)  The Sunday Poem
Dec 102007
 

Sorry for posting so late, but I was at a very enjoyable party up in LA today, and wasn’t home most of the day. This here is a rewrite of a fairly old poem, mostly just cleaned up for meter.

I saw and heard

A tethered girl with a guitar, restringing
On a park bench, clothes and voice wringing
Wrinkles from a rag. She twitched her head,
A nervous finch, her bones aslide, fluid
Bumps beneath her drum-tight skin, a flock
Of birds enclosed by brittle flesh, a-cracking,
And cracking only when she sang.

                                        I feel
A minor need to make her something real:
To steal aloft the eagles trapped within,
To cut them free from helpless hampering skin,
Take hold of jesses, loose them in a spasm,
To watch the music soar past sky and chasm.

But “real” lies in beholder’s hearts, and “real”
Is not lived day to day — is just a tale
Told to children full of fancy dreams,
Who picture avian souls and eagle’s screams.

The whole short scene was just her playing.
She’d sung some words before, I’d say,
Will sing again, will strive, earn cash, survive,
And lyrics do not modulate our lives.

But where is the poem in that?

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The Sunday Poem: Puzzle Poetry

 Posted by (Visited 5905 times)  The Sunday Poem
Dec 022007
 

This one is for Amaranthar. 🙂

Puzzle Poetry

A poem where the lines cannot add up.
Where verbs and nouns are hidden; you must find.
Where rhymes are slanted indiscriminate,
And rhythms pop and prattle out of tune.

It’s not like it’s all done on purpose – no!
We try to make the words convey the most
We can, and sometimes they convey too much.
They overflow, and simple matters mud.

In part, the puzzle lies with us, who craft
The lines and lessons into sonnets. We
Are piecing syllables and skeletons.
We try to make the lines add up to truth.

We fail, and sense is lost cacophonous and ground.
We reach mellifluous success, and then it’s lost in color, and in sound.

The Sunday Poem: Slide

 Posted by (Visited 4551 times)  The Sunday Poem
Nov 182007
 

I just got back from a week of business travel, which included getting to see fall happening in basically three corners of the country. Here in Southern California, fall is basically just brown, save for the few imported trees that change colors. In Boston, there were puddles of vibrant yellow or red leaves under the trees — from the airplane as we departed, it was a shocking sight — a colored shadow under every tree. New York, well, was just rainy.

It made me miss seasons.

Slide

There’s
A pile of sand
Backyard, all covered in snow;
We perch on the very top and slide to collide into
A panting heap of children, red noses and colds.

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The Sunday Poem: Why Wulfric Lived to 90

 Posted by (Visited 5683 times)  The Sunday Poem
Nov 042007
 

“The third guy from the left, along the trestle board,
Who drank a bit more mead than strictly needed… Him,
The one with orange hair and braids all down to here.

Yeah, that’s the guy. He slept through the whole thing, the jerk.
When Grendel came and ripped our arms and popped our skulls,
He slid, plain drunk, right under the roast pig, and snored.

I want his saga privileges revoked. I won’t
Put up with crap like this. Last time we slew a drake,
He tripped. What sort of hero trips on dragon tails?

He makes us all look bad. So yank him from the books.
Declare him warg, or extirpate him from the band.
We’ve got our quest to finish; he just holds us back.”

Poor Wulfric, all Valhalla will not sing his name.

But grandkids might.

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