Songwriting Without Boundaries (17 page)

Angry
taxes
:
I drove my pencil through the tangle of unsure numbers and stale questions, trying to make some sense of my angry taxes.

Snap, another graphite stick bites the dust. Numbers blur, questions stare me down like a buffalo on the plains of North Dakota, my eyes slurring words as my nightlight pops and clicks—tiny fruit flies flitting to their death around April 15th.

KEPPIE COUTTS

Angry
umbrella
:
My angry umbrella flails and pops its arms inside out and refuses to budge back into shape.

The brooding clouds quickly take on a violent edge, turning a nasty shade of purple and brown, a big swelling bruise in the sky. Thick hot droplets spit as I pop my umbrella, but the wind carries the rain at impossibly aggressive angles.

Of course, the trick here is to remember that metaphor is always literally false. Don’t pick something that can be literally angry, like people or bees. Those wouldn’t be metaphors. They’d just be angry people and angry bees. Both Andrea and Keppie chose nouns that don’t belong to
angry
’s family.

Now, you try.

Boastful ____________

SUSAN CATTANEO

Boastful
flag
:
Buoyed by the cheering whistle of the wind, the boastful flag puffed out its chest revealing the proud white, red and blue.

Starched blue uniforms lined up like pencils, the glare of the tuba and trumpet, summer popsicles melting down children’s chins, the creak and complaining of the plaid lawn chair as its straps are stretched …

ANDREA STOLPE

Boastful
hallway
:
Upon entering through massive doors of intimidation we were ushered down a boastful hallway.

White. Shiny and white. Sour sweet smell of disinfectant sleeked across smooth granite floors. Massive chandelier glittery and offensive, hanging like a memorial of plucked chickens strung from their bony wrinkled feet.

Again, both Susan and Andrea chose nouns that are nondiatonic to
boastful.
That’s why they collide.

Your turn.

Careful____________

BONNIE

Careful
light
:
A careful ray of light slinks into the room sideways.

Not through the window but through the crack under the door. With as little fanfare as possible, it edges up my face to a similar crack in my eyelid, and very gently slips into my consciousness. I’d rather keep this reckless darkness behind my eyes.

SUSAN CATTANEO

Careful
sunrise
:
The careful sunrise stepped gently over the mountain’s fragile shoulders.

Dipping an orange velvet slipper into the morning, the sunrise twirls her colorful skirts in the spring air, her voice is the melody of a robin’s trill, a child’s laugh on a carousel …

Interesting what these collisions can spawn. I’d never thought of a mountain as having fragile shoulders before. Nor of light
slinking.
Once you introduce
careful
’s family to
sunrise
’s family, or
light
’s family, all sorts of couplings and conversations can happen.

Your turn.

Dark ____________

SUSAN CATTANEO

Dark
lie
:
Our love was a white sheet blowing on a summer clothesline and his dark lie was a stain that would never come clean.

Wind playing hide-and-seek in the cornfields, the distant drone of a tractor, hard rough hands, red and blotchy, plunge into the cold water, pulling the wet clothes out and dragging them across the washboard …

JESS MEIDER

Dark
static
:
Dark static hung low and humming in the shady ancient temple.

Too far after midnight, I drive into the spotlight cast ten feet ahead, never quite arriving, eyes deliberately dart like the dot above karaoke lyrics, the words unclear, fuzzy. Fingers twist the knob, voices mixed with notes scramble in and out like some far away alter reality. Then blaring audio AM radio fuzz jolts me out of a trance—a dark static, frightening and full of voices, intimidating like large machinery, too much like a box of ghosts that I would rather not open.

Remember, dark
eyes
could be literally true, and thus isn’t a metaphor. They join together rather than colliding. Dark
thoughts,
though a cliché, is a metaphor. It’s literally false.

Your turn.

Enthusiastic ____________

CHANELLE DAVIS

Enthusiastic
balloons
:
I chase the bunch of enthusiastic balloons as they scramble across the lawn and glide over the neatly clipped hedge, floating further and further into the summer sky …

Rainbow colours, rubber stretched tight, full of helium, white ribbons trailing after them, bouncing trying to break free, hot breeze …

SUSAN CATTANEO