Songwriting Without Boundaries (46 page)
Read Songwriting Without Boundaries Online
Authors: Pat Pattison
Like fireflies in a frenzy of light
Flickers of dreams still dance in my mind
A frolic of faces that whisper my name
And tempt me with secrets if I promise to stay
But morning arrives in a pulsing of waves
Swimming and sliding and half awake
Finally breaching the shallow surface
Sunlight streaming through open curtains
BLEU
The sound bangs your head like a hammer to gong
A series of sounds more like screams than a song
You squeeze your eyes, they’re pretending they’re dead
But you make out some numbers blinking bright red
11:11 never looked so damn evil
And the torture you’re feeling seems almost medieval
Your breath hits your nose and you smell last night’s booze
As you fall out of bed straight into your shoes
Both Keppie and Bleu use
identity
rather than rhyme in: waves/ awake and evil/medieval. Note how the sounds don’t feel like they connect—that’s typical of identities. Lovely metaphors and similes in both.
Your turn.
DAY #5
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: John Brown
Who is that raging cauldron that is hissing where he’s sitting
That is fuming like a geyser and sulphuriously spitting
Now he’s leaping to his feet with his fists in the air
And his eyes are slowly burning through a cumulous of hair
Wilder than a wolverine starting to unravel
He is brandishing and hollering and pounding like a gavel
And shouting like a madman with the fire coming down
But this is not a madman this is John Brown
A Baptist in a buckskin with the spirit in his bones
That has taken him and shaken him and claimed him as its own
Possessed him like the demons that go raving through the night
It has lead him to the bottom of the world without a light
What is this fatal whip that will not let him be
Just a whisper in his head that said every man is free
It will take him in the end sure as morning sure as hunger
It will wrap him round the deepest roots and slowly drive him under
But the words will remain when he goes in the ground
This man died for freedom this is John Brown
John Brown John Brown
Come and lay your body down
Smell the coffin, smell the ground
Hear the bootsteps comin’ round
Pitchforks raised against the night
Wrapped in sheets, clean and white
Color’s gonna bring you down
John Brown John Brown
Both of these are basically tetrameter lines. Though my first line has only four syllables, each one is stressed, creating an almost marching feel, as opposed to the expansive line “Possessed him like the demons that go raving through the night.” Note the nice mix of masculine and feminine rhymes in Gillian’s, combined with wonderful metaphors and similes.
Your turn.
5 minutes: Broken Glass
Pierce the callous thick skin
Wishes shatter, punctured like pins
Zing! the stab flashes into the brain
A sharp shard of hope revisits me again
Glassified tears that hit the floor with a crash
They tinkle one by one smash, crack
Scattered diamonds dust the path
Grab the sunlight, shoot it back
Shattered wineglass tossed away
Eyes narrowed, crimson face
Screaming lungs and curling fists
Duck and cover, fuse is lit
Blue to black to yellow stain
Turn your stomach, sweat like rain
Take a look at the verbs in these two. So much of your strength as a writer depends on your choice of verbs—they are the amplifiers of language. The stronger and fresher your verbs, the more your writing crackles.
Now, you try.
DAY #6
TETRAMETER COUPLETS
This is the last day of tetrameter couplets. As always, keep your writing sense-bound, and keep your eyes open for metaphor. Set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Use only tetrameter couplets, and vary your rhythms, using both duples and triples.
Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion
10 minutes: Skydiving
Fear swelling up with the pressure of air
A thousand wind fingers grasping at my loose hair
I stare down the farms, like postage stamps, scattered
The physics too real, the gravity, matter(s)
Can’t find the courage, might not find the cord
Forget butterflies, these are horse-flies, swarms
Somebody’s screaming, can’t make out the words
The lips look like “now!”? … my vision is blurred
… then suddenly … silence … floating free
Sky … ground … air … me
Floating and flying, arms aloft
Clouds like towers, full and soft
Rush of air, lungs expand
A human umbrella with open hands
Heart like a piston, high on the speed
Race like a bullet, slice at the breeze
The bloom of the parachute pulls and billows
You touch ground, gentle as a pillow
Smiling up at the blue and the light
Like Icarus, you are born for sky and flight