Songwriting 365

So, this is my brilliant and cunning plan--to write a song a day for a year (inspired by "A Daily Creativity Journal 365: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life!") I will post the lyrics to this blog every day or so :-) Watch for exciting randomness!

June 1st: GunShy:

Let my light refract thru your prism

And I will take you prisoner

They say love is a battlefield

You and I will start a civil war.

Chorus (2x):

You don't need an alibi

You don't have to justify

It's not that you don't satisfy

You're just a little gunshy.

You need to loose and lose your inhibitions

And start focusing on our chemistry

Our elements will start an explosion

This may very well be World War III!

Chorus 2x

And now for the moral of our story:

(my psycho-sensual dark knight)

This is our Hiroshima, honey

Just light my fire and we'll be alright.

Chorus 2x

June 2nd:

Pink Elephants on Parade

There are lions on the run

Seahorses in the sun

Lobsters in the ocean

Giraffes with such devotion

And if you come quick

The image might stick

Of pink elephants on parade

Pink elephants on parade.

When I become more tech savvy, I will endeavor to post the rough garage band tracks as well :-)

barista wonderland

she was pretty

but not enough to be bothered

(most of the time)

she hid behind the espresso machine

imagining the steam

would transport her

to another coffee-soaked landscape,

filled with clouds of foam and wonderment

if Alice had been a barista

(she thinks)

the Mad Hatter would have been even madder

(with all that caffeine)

and the March Hare

would have demanded

a non-stop stream

of

upside

down

cafe

con

panna

and the white rabbit would dance in the whipping cream

Poems Inspired by Mystic Lipstick

I.

He starts to strum
and I do a double-take:
it's as if a young Gary Cooper
has taken a time machine
to us, here, in 2011,
stopping briefly
(in the 70s? 60s?)
to get guitar lessons from Bob Dylan.

I listen and my wrists ache
for no apparent reason.

My eyes burn with a warmth
that feels as if tears
are flowing backwards
heading home
towards tear ducts.

And all at once
the strumming is over.

And I see his worn
Adidas sneakers
exit into the blackness.

II.

there's the piano intro:
she leans into the microphone
(as if to tell it a secret)
she reminds me of
Clara Bow or Mary Pickford
when they grew up, perhaps,
after films had words

maybe they would sneak off
to sing in a cabaret
pregnant with a melody
tumbling out breathless
along with dark curls

December Poems

Poem for Joni:


“We are waiting for a visitor.”

There is a white table
in an alley
with 2 chairs
a single wine glass
(filled with rain)
on top
(She has whispered
secrets of the universe,
infused those H2Os,
that water is
pretty potent--watch out)

The wind takes out his
pocket watch
blows it open/shut/contemplates...

Is it the season
for reasonable things?

Rain and wind wait
for their dinner guest.
The table is set.
And whispers are afoot.

For Tracie:

It must be 5 o'clock.
She dries the last dishes
delicately places them
in their individual slots
on the Value Village
drying rack they call home.

Today is the day,
she thinks,
today is the day
it will all start to make sense.
I will slowly make my way out of the labyrinth
because I can follow
this long ball of yarn that I
have carefully unraveled.

Today I will read Plath,
she is my sister.
But I will travel back
in time and save her
from herself, pull her
head out of the oven
and say ,"These are your children,
they need you.
Please stay."
And she will listen.

Today I won't dot "i's" or
cross "t's"
on purpose.

She pauses.
Brews a pot of tea
in a well-loved teapot.
Pours.
Lets the steam
caress her face.
Peers down into the cup.
Wonders if the leaves will show her a map to the stars.

For Reina:

November skies
make me think of
flying turkeys,
decomposing jack o'lanterns

(make me miss your smile)
the russet-toned leaves
parachute down
crunch like paper beneath my feet

we were young, once,
you know.

and sometimes life wooshes by
terribly fast
and I feel like a crumpled autumn leaf
but I know
that if you found me
in a big pile of oranges, golds and crimsons:

you would pick me out from all the rest
and press me between the pages
of Neruda or Dickinson
and I would live happily ever after
inside those poems.

what does a boom mike do?

So Max and I tried to film the first episode of Getting Woodzy today and it was a rather epic fail--we realized that neither one of us really knew how the camera worked...and although it was fun to drag my bamboo chairs from Good Cheer from my porch into a wooded area near my apartment, it would have been more fun if we were later able to view and edit footage on a computer. Just saying.

Well, I bought a replacement charger on ebay--that was my contribution.

Would really like the opportunity to take some film classes--maybe find out what would be a good first camera for an aspiring filmmaker to purchase. And also find out what a boom mike does. But I'm never NEVER EVER going to get a Mac. I'm a pc and have no idea how to edit a film...hahahaha.

But we do have a rough outline and gumption. Huzzah

It's been a while...

So, it's been a while since I've posted, but I'm going to try to make this more of a daily or every other day kind of practice.

Am super psyched to play oboe in the pit for Oliver. Also English Horn. I played through the score last night and it felt so satisfying to get my fingers wiggling again. I bought a brand-new medium-hard reed from Joe's Island Music and it played beautifully. When I play the oboe, the rest of the world goes away. There's just me and the music. Amazing.

My friend Max and I are planning on doing a parody of Between Two Ferns called On Two Bamboo Chairs. I will interview local community theatre actors. Think it will be pretty sweet!

Am currently working on directing a staged reading of scenes from To Kill a Mockingbird for a Sno-Isle Libraries Foundation Board benefit on October 16. Jimmy Scullin is playing Atticus and Sophia Larsen-Wickman is playing Scout. Fabulous rehearsals so far.

That's all for now!

Concertina

The Baker from Into the Woods
is practicing parallel parking
in front of the rug store
(in a car marked "student driver")
I follow behind Little Read and the Witch
(from the jr. version)
and in we go.
Beautiful beads, tantalizing tapastries
and a few varied intruments--
I pause by a concertina,
but upon looking at the price tag
I breeze on by.
Making the rounds of the store
I find myself pulled back
to the concertina--
the owner tells me to touch it,
try it out.
The leather straps are too big
for my hands but I put
my small mitts through
and it sings. Italian concertina
made in Russia, bought in Uzbekistan--
now named Adolpho,
and she is mine.