chasing kites: journal entry, the first;
i tied a letter to a big, white balloon
when the wind picked up behind me;
these dreams, where worlds meet must end so soon
can’t afford to believe anymore.
often enough i’ve run into the fog
a jar of glass to catch these spirits in;
you can hope, but you’ll never, ever catch the wind
nor a whisper cup between your palms.
i can wish to hear
a heartbeat
when the sounds of the night say goodbye
it’s a strange, sweet thing
when you lose your faith
and a stranger gives it back without knowing
so i’ll write my thanks
these fingerprints
on a church pew
maybe someday you’ll chance upon it
and that letter
that i tied to that big, white balloon,
i’ll set loose
fly away now from
me.
That is not a poem; and I am not a poet.
But if I were a poet, then this piece that I have just shared would be one of the many snatches of poetry that I have written over the years; seated at the piano, or listening to my brother play his guitar, the words coming to me sometimes like the breaking of a dam, or the quiet drip drip drip of a leaking faucet.
I am a musician and a lyricist, and so my experience with poetry falls more to the moments when I opt to weave notes with words, and instead of individuals like William Butler Yeats or Gail Tremblay, W.H. Auden or ee cummings, I look to artists like Vienna Teng, Tori Amos, Loreena McKennitt, or even the many clever rock musicians out there like Brandon Boyd or Adam Levine, who manage to slip in metaphor and imagery into songs that play back to millions.
The task of writing my music, these songs, much like the poems discussed in “Adam’s Curse: Inspiration and Effort”, may see-saw between easy or difficult. The above piece that I’ve just shared came to me at a chance moment – where myself and a friend sat somewhere in one of the school halls, the music pouring out of me as if someone had gone ahead and pressed play.
Writing it all down afterwards, polishing the piece, making sure that the words made sense, that the essence of what emotion fueled it to so suddenly materialize in my throat and heart was like a mad dash to the finish of a relay. Consistency and coherence were a must for the written word, while at the same time, the tune that had wrapped itself around these words demanded that each syllable be in time with whichever note dipped or rose, soared high or fell.
I am not really sure how I learned to write, or how I do when the time comes to it, but I do know that learning to love words, and in my case, learning to love and appreciate all sorts of music has helped to fuel the writing; has kept my muse ‘well-fed’. Working on the words; playing with them until a certain rhythm and rhyme coincided with the music in my head, scratching out and writing back in verses and phrases so that eventually all the awkward puzzle pieces fit, and fit well.
these clothes don’t fit me anymore
these shoes are too worn down for walking
you strip your being down
you shed the skin off
the barest of your bones
These five lines make up the chorus to The Coming of Age, a piece that has taken me over two years to complete. It began with the repetition of notes, the image of someone just on the edge of growing up, and the feeling of being so small in comparison to everything else. I’ve rewritten, removed, and returned words, cutting once longer lines down, changing phrases in an attempt to capture the near-futility, the quiet fear, that sense of knowing that once the step is taken, there is no going back to childhood and innocence. I tell it – sing it – not from the child, but from the adult who holds his or her own breath, fully aware of what lies ahead.
take it slow
you’re going out there now
and you have only yourself
and the thoughts you carry
you have only your hands
and then you will breathe in deeply
you will look for something out there
I picture, pictured, what I would tell myself, if I could. Me, standing at the current ‘end of the line’ which is now, looking back on what was then.
and you know
that all that’s left is faith
and trust will be right here
caught between your fingers
the world’s so big
and you will keep your secrets
leave alone what’s for tomorrow
Once again, much like the first piece I shared, I hesitate to call this a poem as far as other poems go. This tells too much and only manages to show when the tune accompanies it. But this is my poetry, and this is how I write: flats and sharps, major and minor chords, Cs and As and Fs and every other note ascending or descending the stairs of scales and octaves.
And though there is hardly a class on song-writing of this sort, if there were, I know that given the opportunity to teach what I’ve attempted and managed to learn on my own, I would turn my thoughts to a compilation of songs burned into a blank CD, printed out lyrics bound with leaves of actual poetry, and the chance of sitting everyone down in a circle, giving them not so much advice, but a suggestion:
Listen. It always begins with you learning how to listen. To open oneself, to remember and relive one’s experiences, pen in hand, music playing from the radio in your head, surrendering completely to the magic of what is written and what can be sung.