Tag Archives: writing

When a song isn’t “just a song”

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Music speaks to our inner being in many ways. Melody and rhythm can get our body moving, increase our pulse, or help us relax. Music with lyrics can do the same thing, but the added dimension of words with the music impacts our thoughts and feelings on a different level. What poetry does without music; song lyrics achieve in combination with it. It is much like poetry in this way, with music stated rather than implied. Countless stories exist about songs that opened doors for people or affected them in some way.

I like the Beatles. Their music and lyrics always provide me with a feeling or thought I didn’t have the last time. It is particularly uplifting to me. Others may feel differently, or other artists may provide that same feeling to them. Yet, for me – I always return to the Beatles for inspiration or comfort.

My parents have both recently passed away. My father in 2019, and my mother last December. Both parents wished to be cremated, so my brother, sister and I abided by their wishes. When my father passed, we made no arrangements to inter his ashes, as we had to quickly make plans to relocate my mother closer to me as a primary care giver. My Dad’s ashes traveled with us approximately 800 miles from their home and sat on my mother’s bedside table. My mother, despite my best efforts, did not take especially well to the relocation. Then the COVID pandemic interrupted our lives. Far from her “home”, she was not her happiest self and tended to sleep a lot. This continued after restrictions to visitation were lifted. Ultimately, she passed peacefully in her sleep, a manner that I am confident was her deepest desire.

We held a brief family-centered service so that the immediate family could all say their goodbyes. But after her cremation we were faced with what to do with her ashes and my father’s ashes. After a bit of reflection, I thought it would be a good idea to bring them back to the community that had been their home and inter them in the church that had been their extended family. I made contact with the church, and after several months of discussions, planning and delayed communications, we finally arranged a memorial and interment service for my parents. It is actually today, as I write this, in approximately 3 hours.

As I prepared to make the 800-mile drive from my house to our destination, I was going over the mental checklist, setting the GPS, and turned on the radio in my car. I often listen to a certain satellite radio service that carries “The Beatles Channel” (18). They have a regular feature entitled, “My Fab Four,” that features fans or other musicians, actors, etc. listing and deejaying their personal list of four favorite Beatles songs. This feature was just beginning, as I pulled out of my driveway onto my street. The featured deejay talked about the first song in his list being on the first Beatles album he had heard. The song was “Two of Us” from the Let it Be album.

Two of Us, by Paul McCartney/John Lennon

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone’s hard-earned pay
You and me, Sunday driving
Not arriving, on our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

Two of us sending postcards
Writing letters on my wall
You and me burning matches
Lifting latches, on our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

You and I have memories
Longer than the road
That stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

You and I have memories
Longer than the road
That stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me, chasing paper
Getting nowhere
On our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

We’re going home

You better believe it
Goodbye

The lyrics spoke to me in that moment. Two of us….On our way home…We’re going home. Now, granted this is The Beatles channel and chances are good that I would have heard the song sometime during the day. Yet, hearing it the MOMENT I left my house on a journey returning my parents to their resting place and their home. There was something otherworldly about it. Neither of my parents cared much for the Beatles, but they were musicians and understood the messages that music can convey. I believe that I was being spoken to by spiritual forces conveying their approval at what I was doing. Fast forward to the end of my trip. I stopped at a town 20 miles from my hotel destination to grab a fast-food dinner. I received my order at the drive-thru and was returning to the interstate – I switched on the radio to the Beatles Channel. “Two of Us” was just starting to play…again, the timing of that moment was simply supernatural.

Sometimes a song isn’t just a song. Sometimes it is a moment of revelation or confirmation. To me, this was as if my parents spoke to me, telling me this was what they wanted. They are home.

Music is the universal language of mankind. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thanks for reading.

Opalescence

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A jellyfish cloud drifted in the sky

propelling itself hither and nigh.

The type of motions that mesmerize,

whilst I woolgather time in the ocean wide.

A rabbit perched upon some pillow fluff,

awaiting a moment to jump, and not to muff-

then disappear inside a hole in a huff.

(All this I’ll imagine soon enough.)

And later, the sky I watched was flattened and grey.

A canvas without texture on a humid summer’s day

settled in to remove my imaginative display.

And the daydreams diverted down and away.

The shades of green caught now in my sight,

Jagged lines on the edge of the canvas’ chalk-white.

whispering connections to the last vestiges of light.

And the opalescence of dreams settled in for the night.

Driving into Lascassas after midnight

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Driving into Lascassas after midnight, when only the ghosts walk.

The glint of streetlights launches from the pavement,

a blank page to capture dreams

and past countenances in the moonlight.

The words you speak echo in the night and pass through blinking traffic lights;

As poems create themselves in flight.

Not like arriving at LaGuardia on a Sunday afternoon,

with its hallways filled with a thousand stories at every turn.

There is a rush and jumble to this world,

only small pockets of stillness swirl

to float a verse into the air.

Most often colliding in the face of a hurried elsewhere.

Almost never staying free and clear,

like driving through Lascassas after midnight

with soundless ghosts and streetlight glare.

Rabbit

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The sky was pallid, lacking device.

My ambition was weedy and my aims imprecise.

I walked near a garden while out on a stroll.

My mind in a spin that was out of control.

When a rabbit darted from beneath the hedge-row yew

out onto the pavement and pondered askew.

It paused just enough to acknowledge my glance

then hurried away in a leap and a prance.

My eyes then diverted to a swelling of phlox,

purple and white, and crept over rocks.

Opportunistic, these flowers that crawl

slow and indifferent of their beauty and sprawl.

A shelter for insects, this bloom carpet sum

covered terrain in a besetment of rhumbs.

The rabbit returned, hopped in a straight line,

I stood there connecting the points to design.

What wonder is here. What mystery there.

The path to discovery does not compare

the direction, the lines that we draw are just that.

Drawn from perspective, our own charted plat.

The rabbit now vanished, my lunch hour spent,

I returned to my workday with a poet’s intent.

A Prelude (for my Mother)

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A single bell has rung the hour.
Our moment to remember dear affection is now here.
The overtone from ringing still quite clear.

The ringing overtones are lucid and bright.
Our memories like the matin chimes that wake.
A single bell has rung, the hour appears.

The bell now rung to mark remembrance of the hour.
The organist starts her pedal tones and song
over tones of ringing, crystal clear.

The sounds of bells and melodies o’er tones so clear;
A prelude of majestic time begins
after the bell has rung, the wrinkle of the hour.

The bell-tone sounds the hour as it’s rung.
Songs of memories flush and flare the cathedral walls
with tones of ringing bells so loud and clear.

A single bell has rung the hour in song,
the overtone from ringing, clear and strong.

*****************************

This is a poem I wrote for my Mom who passed away earlier this month. She was an excellent pianist/organist. I read this villanelle at the beginning of her memorial service, so the prelude nature of the bells and the repeating sounds would stand as a testament to her talent and life. Thanks for reading.

Bridges

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A craftwork of metal and wire arisen out of a mist.

Something fashioned by a fantasist

appealing to our journey, future-made

above the clouds with hope arrayed.

A box across the creek bed, made of wood.

The romantic moonlight lit and understood

its dirt road point of interception.

It hosts a memory of affection.

The stone one with its aqueduct eyes,

peering just above the waterline.

A docile stream that’s hardly flowing,

yet moves a slight, its life sea-going.

The poet’s words are diffident,

but stand in verse, the infinite

transitions to a place of rest

spanning over rocks and clefts.

Horizons stand, all that remains

beyond the beckoning segue plains.

With Coffee

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I reached for a cup with stripes in the cupboard,

setting among the ivory porcelain others,

and after putting it down on the marbled counter

I waited for the coffee to spit and sputter.

I poured from the carafe to the cup with the stripes

and added sweetener from a yellow packet, twice.

I stirred with a long-stemmed spoon, and thus

the coffee swirled and swirled.

 I confess among the rivers in my mind

I counted the swirls encompassing time.

Somewhere there adding some milk in a dollop,

I came up with this veiled verse of codswallop.

If you’ve read this far thinking I’ve something to say,

maybe it’s just that I like my coffee this way.

Or perhaps my own struggles in crafting aright

this poem’s distraction is less of a fight.

The coffee in the striped cup has a caramel hue,

is sweetened with a bitterness aftertaste too,

Like many poems that I’ve already done,

it’s finished, and the cup sits in the sink in the sun.

Once, in a blue moon

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I see a full moon lighting up the road ahead, the sound of B.B. King’s blues are knocking in my head.

Behind me, morning peeks and skies tint gold, as I drive toward the night – it’s bright and bold.

Yesterday, I cleaned the leaves from my front yard, blowing up a cloud of amber shards.

Leaves of yellow, gold and brown and red, coated under foot and seeming dead.

Clearing out the old then seeing green, the grass looked more healthy than it’s ever been.

Everyday – as B.B. sings his full lament- I have the blues – but sadness isn’t what he meant.

There is beauty in this world of loss. What we carry through we layer or emboss

on the surface of our daily works of art. We make from aches and pain a stronger beating heart.

I’m still driving west to chase the moon, but daylight will arrive and overtake me soon.

And as the song from B.B. King is done, the opening picking strain of Here Comes the Sun.

2020, well that escalated quickly.

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The year 2020 will likely go into the history books as a watershed moment. It was the best of times and the worst of times, all rolled into an escalating cluster* of human behavior. We have dealt with (sometimes well, sometimes poorly) a global pandemic, political gamesmanship, natural disasters, ignorance, picking at old ethnic and racial discrimination wounds, asking what constitutes a sexual identity, personal loss, and public tragedy.

Perhaps all years hold this mixed bag of mess to some degree, but it was our home-bound-ness and reliance on all things social media that magnified EVERY SINGLE THING. I personally began rationing my social media intake around June of this year, just so that I wouldn’t give myself an ulcer – or worse – a heart attack. Given the state of things, I will likely continue that limit well into 2021.

Given that it is the end of this year, I want to take a moment to review my accomplishments and speak about goals.

What I read:

This year, I set a goal to finish reading 10 books. As of this morning 12/30, I have now finished 11 books. While that may seem modest to some, I consider it an achievement. Being on lockdown for most of the spring/summer helped me achieve that number. As I have mentioned before, I tend to start several books at once, then gravitate to one as time goes by. Not the most efficient way to read, but I’ve always done that. Among the titles I finished are The Club Dumas, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Both novels are books about books, and I seem to enjoy that. Also included were a couple of revolutionary war biographies, Benjamin Rush and David Hosack. The longest of my read books were Tune In, by Mark Lewisohn (a biography of The Beatles) and Sarum, by Edward Rutherford.

What I’ve cooked:

Like many in the early days of the pandemic, I started baking more. I like to bake anyway, so it wasn’t much of a stretch. I started my own sourdough starter and kept it going for a couple of months. Alas, that had to come to a close because carbs are not my friends.

I also have done quite a bit of smoking/outdoor grilling. in 2020, I’ve smoked 3 briskets, 3 pulled pork roasts, 2 turkeys, reverse seared ribeyes, 2 spatch-cocked chickens, a beef tenderloin, 4 racks of ribs, 2 batches of burnt ends, and smoked cheese.

What I wrote:

2020 was not the most prolific year in terms of writing. I simply didn’t feel like writing for large stretches of time. I feel like the things I did draft were of a better quality than most from years past, so there’s that. I didn’t submit any of it for publication, as my distaste of publication rejection continues. I strive to get feedback on this site to understand how readers perceive what I write, but WordPress readers are largely lurkers. Among the poems I’ve written this year, I’m most fond of April 2020 and A Violette, and most proud of Now is the Time for Harvests and Torte, with my Father. If you have a moment, please read and leave a comment or find something else you like and let me know about it.

Goals for 2021

My goals for 2021 are wide open at this point. I would like to write more and better poetry, be published in a recognized literary journal, and attend a writing retreat/workshop. I would love to be able to travel again with my wife with no concerns about pandemics. I will continue to cook because I love to eat. I will continue to read because books are a great way to escape into my mind.

To those of you who stop by regularly to read, I appreciate you and hope that you will continue to find something here that makes you think or that you enjoy. I wish you all the best in 2021.

Happy New Year!

Anxiety

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I worked in the garden today, removing the troublesome weeds.
The apprehension of a thistle, dug deep with a trowel,
broad leaves and thorns that won’t concede.

I dug through the garden today, pulling up my anxiety.
The crabgrass and chickweed spread in the clover,
rooted deep with angst and unease.

I weeded the garden today, prying the nightshade free.
My concerns over nettle and henbit and dock
disquieted my plain revery.

I cleared out the garden today, the soil freshly turned to see
the divots and pockets where once were the nutsedge
now awaiting new flowers and seed.