Songwriting Without Boundaries (45 page)

The cookies were crumbling and tumbling fast

His teeth bit right through them like cold breaking glass

The avalanche sputtered with each bite he took

Pieces of cookies peppered his book

Caught in the story right through the big quake

Chocolate and sugar covered the page

Little desperate crumbs in the side of his mouth

Like a dozen spring skiers holding their ground

Clinging for safety like small chocolate chips

In the mustache like tree limbs losing their grip

As usual, set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Use only tetrameter lines, creating couplets by
rhyming lines in pairs
. And this time, feel free to vary your rhythms with both duple and triple feel. Remember,

Mary had a little lamb
is a duple feel.

Mary, she had the littlest lamb
is a triple feel.

But stay with four stresses per line.

Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

10 minutes: Mountain

GILLIAN WELCH

I remember as a child I was looking at the mountain

At the penny bright leaves and the river dark fountain

And the brushy willow bending and the granite all a-shiver

And the quiet pine a-standing by the sudden laughing river

And I looked at the sky and I looked at the ground

And I wondered at the mountain that could bring the night down

In a silent creeping shadow like a vapor like a stain

Spreading out and deepening and emptying the vein

Spilling down into the valley from the lee side to the plain

And there it cast a shadow like a place with out a bottom

There was summer in the meadow but on the mountain it was autumn

Made a worry in your bones just to pass beneath the pall

With a lonesome kind of empty like a cupboard on the wall

And a withered kind of purple like the fruit upon the ground

That’s the color of the mountain that could bring the night down

KEPPIE COUTTS

Rising up like a bicep curl

Ridges and rims unfold and unfurl

The earth like the face of an ancient man

Twisting his smile and making the land

Houses sprout in Los Angeles

In places you never think they would be

Nestled into the crust and folds

Of the mountains that frame the glittering gold

The Hollywood sign is an acne scar

From a teenage romance that went too far

The boulevard is a magazine

With pages torn out and glutting the streets

The mountains behind must sigh as they watch

The pimples swell until they pop

The metaphors and similes are wonderful. Go ahead and underline them. Can you feel the triple meter in both? The rhymes are mixtures of perfect and other assorted rhyme types. Remember when you’re doing yours that the whole rhyming panoply is available. Use them, especially when you’re on the hunt for a rhyme match.

Now, try it.

5 minutes: Snowstorm

CHANELLE DAVIS

I hear her rattling the kitchen door

Whipping the roof and chilling the floor

Her breath is angry and restless tonight

Screaming through the huddled pines

The streets are devoured in clouds of snow

And the stars shiver with nowhere to go

BLEU

Blurry and furious blusterous wind

Stinging your face like millions of pins

You can’t feel your fingers or find your direction

The road disappeared in a coat of confection

This stuff is so frigid you can’t call it snow

It’s more like the sky is just dropping small stones

You trudge through the white at significant angle

And pray that the storm is too weak to strangle

You struggle and stumble and crash to your knees

And feel your throat squeeze as your vocal chords freeze

Again, the metaphors are lovely. Also note the personification in Chanelle’s and the use of second person in Bleu’s. Some nice rhyming with tonight/pines, wind/pins, snow/stones. Notice especially how they “open” the couplets and make them move. That’s what creates instability, which can be very expressive in itself, like a film score enhancing the meanings of the words.

Your turn.

DAY #4

TETRAMETER COUPLETS

Keep your writing sense-bound, and keep your eyes open for metaphor. As usual, set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Use only tetrameter lines, creating couplets by rhyming lines in pairs. Feel free to vary your rhythms with both duple and triple feel.

Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

10 minutes: Train

GILLIAN WELCH

Slowly with a puffing and a pulling and a chugging

It is moving like a mountain with a hundred horses tugging

Now just a little faster you can see the wheels a-turning

You can hear the steam a-hissing you can smell the diesel burning

In the silent sliding window see the wishers who are waving

Into daylight as we jettison the platform and the paving

Then the scrappy city fences and the blur of the trees

And then the old conductor will be taking tickets please

BLEU

Like African drums way off in jungle

Calling to you with a rippling rumble

You slip out the window and into the black

Feeling your way to the rusty old track

A faint star appears too close to the ground

And you know that it’s coming, no stopping it now

Then comes the whistle, changing in pitch

From lower to higher, your heart starts to twitch

And now you can feel the wood shaking in time

And smell the coal burning, and see the smoke rise

As the iron rushes forward you raise up your fists

And scream at the engine and the world in the mist

You stare down that killer, and don’t move an inch

’Til it’s one breath away, and you’re laughing in the ditch

Note Gillian’s use of all feminine rhymes, until the last couplet, which ends nicely with the one-syllable masculine rhyme trees/please. They are all perfect rhymes. Look at Bleu’s rhymes and try to name the different rhyme types. Both use triple rhythms well, making the train really move.

Your turn.

5 minutes: Sleeping Late

KEPPIE COUTTS