NOTE: These are songs that I wrote for a now-mostly-defunct short story. I left the "musical" notes in so that anyone who wants to try can take a stab at imagining what the hell I was trying to do.
“Don’t Leave Me”
NOTES: 1.) Bass drum thumping slow, a thump about every two or three seconds 2.) Acoustic guitar plucking strings in rhythm (lead singer playing) about five notes for every thump of the bass drum 3.) Lead singer sings the words in an almost whisper and a lot of heartache in his voice that speaks reams of personal experience 4.) Electric bass guitar comes in halfway through the first verse so low and subtle that you have to be listening for it to hear it and it builds up to something by the time the verse ends 5.) Then:
(Verse)
Could I be there with you?
Would you still listen
When I have nothing left to say?
The sound of your voice
Could take me to where you are
And I just wanted you to know
That I’ll be okay
NOTES (CONT.): 1.) Short drum solo ending in cymbals crashing, then drums settling into rhythm for the chorus as 2.) Electric guitars come crashing in with a lot of buzzing noise at the same time as 3.) Lead singer raises voice and yells the lyrics to the chorus with anger and hurt 4.) On ‘today’ all the different parts of the musical ensemble settle down and settle back into the rhythm of before
(Chorus)
Don’t leave me here
Don’t leave me here alone
Don’t leave me
Cold and empty and helpless, unsheltered
Don’t leave me here
Today
NOTES: Lead Singer screaming
(Refrain)
All this selfishness
And wasted trust
You threw it in my face!
You laughed as I lay broken ON THE FLOOR!
And I felt how bitter your love tastes
But where were you in the aftermath?
Gone slamming through the door
And I COULD’VE GONE CHASING after you!
But I wanted so much more
NOTES: Really quiet
(Second Chorus)
Don’t leave me here alone
Don’t leave me here today
Don’t leave me
Cold and empty and helpless, unsheltered
Don’t leave me here
Like you did
Today
“Would You Still be There Tomorrow?” (Just an acoustic guitar, simple strumming)
Would you still be there tomorrow
When I come back from yesterday?
Could we still wind up together?
Is that a promise that you’ll make?
And I don’t know (‘know’ high-pitched and long and drawn out) if we can make it through
The days just drift away
(Guitar strums down until…)But, baby, I just wanted you know
(Guitar picks out notes to the final words)That I still love you
Should I still be walking this city block
On these beaten tired feet?
All this endless walking that I do
It’s amazing that we never meet
And I don’t know if we can make it through
The days just drift away
And I’m sleeping in these silent halls
Dreaming of your face
I’m counting by the hours
Just waiting for that day
When we could be together
In that long-lost distant place
But, baby, I just wanted you to know
That I still love you
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
The Gift of Carnal Desire
She doesn’t come to visit except briefly, after long periods of
time.
She brings smalls gifts of her body to me to savor in sips.
Like the allowance of my fingers through her hair soft as silk
from her shampoo,
Smelling of peaches and honey and vanilla and sugar, the
scent shifting with her mood.
The shape of her foot in my lap, the nails of the toes shaped
perfectly and pink underneath,
I slip my fingers into the spaces in between and she’s so soft
in the folds of hidden flesh.
She gives me the gift of her eyes staring into mine, looking
away, looking back,
Wide and scared and big and brown, with a dusting of yellow
flecks like gold.
She brings her breasts formed from the sculptor’s clay as she
stands topless in the kitchen,
The smell of food sizzling on the stove wrapping her up in the
warmth as the early sun rises in the window.
For my birthday and Christmas I ask for her lips and hands
pressed against me.
Things that she won’t give away like her ears and legs and
buttocks and cunt,
Things that she wants to keep for herself because she doesn’t
trust me to handle them with care.
If I ask nicely she’ll surrender her entire body to me in the
dark
Because neither one of us is a whole person and when we
join together we’re even less in the worldview.
I’ve spent whole nights tasting her flesh, the salt coating my
tongue until it becomes a dried organ,
Until I wake up in the morning and it’s my own skin I am
now eating.
Then she’s gone from me like a phantom or a fevered dream
in my restless sleep.
I begin to wonder if she was ever there to begin with, the
sound of her voice echoing in my mind
And in the floorboards of the hall where I step out to check
the knocks of my prankster ears.
I pay the bills and I watch TV and I eat two day old lasagna
from the pan as I forget.
Then I reach across the bed in the early hours to the cold
spot I was so sure she’d occupy this time.
I begin to move away and move on with my life again,
showering and dressing in nice clothes.
I meet someone new who lacks in personality and charm but
makes up for it with a nice rack.
We have our thing together and fling our bodies at each
other like it was the last thing we were meant to do,
But it never lasts, and someone new is always gone from my
life as quickly as they came.
I begin to sink down because it’s the only place that offers me
comfort anymore.
If I drink heavily enough I know I won’t remember,
And if I take the pills in the medicine cabinet I’ll be too numb
to feel the pain as I forget.
But then she comes back to me again, stepping across the
threshold like she never left in the first place.
She teases me with yet another piece of herself and the tears
of her latest failed tryst with the real world.
Maybe I can convince her to stay this time, that we’re as
good for each other as it’s ever going to get.
We’re far from perfect and God knows any other time we
could do so much better
But her arms and wrists and hands and fingers and nails
wrapped around behind my back
With her face pushed up close to mine
Feels like the sun coming through the clouds for a split-
second when it’s been raining all day
And for once you look up from the muck at the gray clouds
lined with gold
And you see a world where you can live and exist and go
from day to day
Without the reminder that this life is no longer the one you
want to lead
Until death in a cemetery lined with hedgerows and the fallen
petals of wilting flowers.
time.
She brings smalls gifts of her body to me to savor in sips.
Like the allowance of my fingers through her hair soft as silk
from her shampoo,
Smelling of peaches and honey and vanilla and sugar, the
scent shifting with her mood.
The shape of her foot in my lap, the nails of the toes shaped
perfectly and pink underneath,
I slip my fingers into the spaces in between and she’s so soft
in the folds of hidden flesh.
She gives me the gift of her eyes staring into mine, looking
away, looking back,
Wide and scared and big and brown, with a dusting of yellow
flecks like gold.
She brings her breasts formed from the sculptor’s clay as she
stands topless in the kitchen,
The smell of food sizzling on the stove wrapping her up in the
warmth as the early sun rises in the window.
For my birthday and Christmas I ask for her lips and hands
pressed against me.
Things that she won’t give away like her ears and legs and
buttocks and cunt,
Things that she wants to keep for herself because she doesn’t
trust me to handle them with care.
If I ask nicely she’ll surrender her entire body to me in the
dark
Because neither one of us is a whole person and when we
join together we’re even less in the worldview.
I’ve spent whole nights tasting her flesh, the salt coating my
tongue until it becomes a dried organ,
Until I wake up in the morning and it’s my own skin I am
now eating.
Then she’s gone from me like a phantom or a fevered dream
in my restless sleep.
I begin to wonder if she was ever there to begin with, the
sound of her voice echoing in my mind
And in the floorboards of the hall where I step out to check
the knocks of my prankster ears.
I pay the bills and I watch TV and I eat two day old lasagna
from the pan as I forget.
Then I reach across the bed in the early hours to the cold
spot I was so sure she’d occupy this time.
I begin to move away and move on with my life again,
showering and dressing in nice clothes.
I meet someone new who lacks in personality and charm but
makes up for it with a nice rack.
We have our thing together and fling our bodies at each
other like it was the last thing we were meant to do,
But it never lasts, and someone new is always gone from my
life as quickly as they came.
I begin to sink down because it’s the only place that offers me
comfort anymore.
If I drink heavily enough I know I won’t remember,
And if I take the pills in the medicine cabinet I’ll be too numb
to feel the pain as I forget.
But then she comes back to me again, stepping across the
threshold like she never left in the first place.
She teases me with yet another piece of herself and the tears
of her latest failed tryst with the real world.
Maybe I can convince her to stay this time, that we’re as
good for each other as it’s ever going to get.
We’re far from perfect and God knows any other time we
could do so much better
But her arms and wrists and hands and fingers and nails
wrapped around behind my back
With her face pushed up close to mine
Feels like the sun coming through the clouds for a split-
second when it’s been raining all day
And for once you look up from the muck at the gray clouds
lined with gold
And you see a world where you can live and exist and go
from day to day
Without the reminder that this life is no longer the one you
want to lead
Until death in a cemetery lined with hedgerows and the fallen
petals of wilting flowers.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
I Want to Tell You a Story (Excerpt)
She has a state map spread out on the bed between us and it has lines on it that mean interstates and highways and I trace the lines with my eyes going up and going into other states and disappearing off the edge of the map and I look up at her and she puts her forehead against mine and stares into my eyes and I can smell her breath and it smells like bits of turkey torn off from the sides of her sandwich that she packed in her lunch.
“All the time?” I ask.
“Yeah. All the time.”
“I don’t want you doing that anymore.”
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s not like anything ever happens.”
Her eyes don’t say that I should believe her.
“I don’t want you doing that anymore,” I say.
She pulls away and sits back and doesn’t look at me and I look at the TV, which is on but the volume’s turned way down so you can’t hear it, and I think about her lips really close to mine and I wonder if there was anything I could’ve said right. I look back again and she’s looking at me, but only for a second, and then she looks away again.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“What are you sorry for?”
“Nothing.”
She looks at me and her forehead’s all crinkly and she suddenly looks very tired and I feel, suddenly, very tired and I lay down on top of the covers and I think about closing my eyes but she’s still looking at me and she says, “Don’t be weird, okay?”
“But you said that…”
“Don’t be weird.”
Then we don’t say anything else and I think I fall asleep first and when I wake up in the morning the TV’s off and the covers are up around my neck and Sara Elizabeth’s just a bump next to me and I watch her move as she breathes and I close my eyes again and try to go back to sleep but I keep thinking of her sleeping next to me.
“All the time?” I ask.
“Yeah. All the time.”
“I don’t want you doing that anymore.”
“Why?”
“It’s dangerous.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s not like anything ever happens.”
Her eyes don’t say that I should believe her.
“I don’t want you doing that anymore,” I say.
She pulls away and sits back and doesn’t look at me and I look at the TV, which is on but the volume’s turned way down so you can’t hear it, and I think about her lips really close to mine and I wonder if there was anything I could’ve said right. I look back again and she’s looking at me, but only for a second, and then she looks away again.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“What are you sorry for?”
“Nothing.”
She looks at me and her forehead’s all crinkly and she suddenly looks very tired and I feel, suddenly, very tired and I lay down on top of the covers and I think about closing my eyes but she’s still looking at me and she says, “Don’t be weird, okay?”
“But you said that…”
“Don’t be weird.”
Then we don’t say anything else and I think I fall asleep first and when I wake up in the morning the TV’s off and the covers are up around my neck and Sara Elizabeth’s just a bump next to me and I watch her move as she breathes and I close my eyes again and try to go back to sleep but I keep thinking of her sleeping next to me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)