Songwriting Without Boundaries (15 page)

SUSAN CATTANEO:
Hot August sun broils the asphalt, and the limousines line up grill to bumper, charcoal briquettes at a blackened funeral.

The widow bends over the open grave and drops a white rose into the darkened mouth of earth. Mourners holding tissues close, keen quietly as the dark casket’s holy …

You’ll be seeing a lot more of Chanelle, too. Note how both she and Susan litter their writing with black—umbrellas, coats, mascara, asphault, charcoal briquettes, and “the darkened mouth of earth.”

Now, you try.

Fallen Carburetor

GREG BECKER:
After 43 years of smoking his Marlboro Reds, he grabs his chest in his final moments as his fallen carburetor coughs and chokes out its final breath.

Deep within his chest the echoes of laughter and a strong young voice bounce off the metallic tar-stained fallen carburetor that once was a pink lung—the carburetor that, in his younger days could take a breath large enough to throw a touchdown pass or blow out the candles on a cake, now just sat rusted within him.

SUSAN CATTANEO:
The preacher’s old station wagon preached a sermon of exhaust as it rumbled downtown, its fallen carburetor backfiring rhetoric.

Bibles rise precariously like stairs in the passenger seat, the radio tuned to Sunday’s sermon blasts hymn through scratchy speakers, tight white suspenders and a starched white shirt, wedding ring suffocating the puffy left ring finger …

Pretty interesting: Greg sees a lung as a carburetor, coughing and choking—verbs that work with either lungs or carburetors. And Susan turns the preacher into a car “backfiring rhetoric.”

Your turn.

Smooth Autumn

ANNE HALVORSEN:
School bells announce the autumn smooth with old comforts.

Scent of newly sharp pencils, pristine erasers, top zip cases fitting neatly on notebook rings, snaps of binders pinching fingers as they close over endless white circles licked and placed, reinforcing holes already ripped …

CHANELLE DAVIS:
This was a smooth autumn, yellow leaves slick and dripping with fresh rain, sticking to my boots. The river was swollen and I watched the ducks gliding in pairs, every now and again a quack breaking the misty silence.

Layers of leaves, sweet rotting smell, squirrels running with wet feet, licking wet fur, cloudy sky, hidden sun, warm hands around a takeaway Starbucks cup, standing in the park rain falling from trees, on my forehead, still air, shiny concrete, washed away chalk hopscotch game, empty playground…

Hot spots: “School bells announce…”; “yellow leaves slick and dripping with fresh rain.”

Now, your turn.

Fevered Handkerchief

GREG BECKER:
After several days of the flu he crawls out of bed no more than a fevered handkerchief with pillow imprints wrinkled into his cheeks.

Fevered handkerchief is a grumpy rumplestiltskin rag tossed aside after cooling off a sweaty brow, the linen sponge filled with sickness and sweat, thirsty for a cool breeze to dry off its hard night’s work. It lays exhausted in its own pile of success.

IAN HENCHY:
The fevered handkerchief sprinted from the man’s weathered hands to his nose, just in time to catch the volcanic sneeze and keep the bacteria-ridden lava from spewing about the room.

The virgin-white handkerchief served as his trusty sidekick throughout cold and flu season. It sat, perched like a parrot in the breast pocket of his business blazer for whenever it was needed. It still smelled factory fresh, a slightly abrasive dry-clean smell with soft undertones.

Pretty interesting handkerchiefs, eh?

Now write your own version.

Five down, five to go. The words have been mixed up a bit, and you’ll do the same thing for each new adjective/noun combination., Again, write a sentence, then a ninety-second piece for each collision, using it as the prompt.

Lonely Handkerchief

JESS MEIDER:
An angel flew from the fingers of a hand in a sin-red BMW convertible, onto the desert ashphalt. A long highway snaking from horizon to horizon, as the lonely handkerchief lies crumpled on the ground, weeping for its circumstance.

Sitting decoratively in the man’s breast pocket, the handkerchief listens to the conversations intently, waiting for some pretty eyes to press into its neatly pressed corner from laughing so hard that the tears come bubbling up, like the laughter from her sensual belly.

GREG BECKER:
The gowns and tuxedos had all gone home, tossing him aside for the evening, nothing but a lonely handkerchief crumpling into himself, clutching his near empty glass.