I often use some of my poems as a foundation for song lyrics for FAWM or 50/90 (2 songwriting challenges). And since 50/90 is coming up in July, I wrote the NaPoWriMo poem #5 “Stairway to July,” hoping to turn it into a song. Well, I’ve started playing around with something and thought I’d share this clip here.
I hope to flesh it out further during 50/90.
There’s a woman so sure
She thought she was the cure
Until the day her world exploded
Who or what was overlooked
As she questioned the why
When she raised her fist to the sky
Her favorite month
The one of her birth
No longer had any meaning
All around her raised the flag
So she doesn’t even dare
To speak of it here, there or anywhere
The seventh month of the year
Shows up without fear
As the people march up and down
To celebrate their freedom in the whole damn town
But for her it’s not the same
She couldn’t know him or her last name
The decades come and go
Whether she likes it yes or no
Will she be climbing this time
The stairway without rhyme
Celebrating the moon’s phase
For 31 days
What once was a test of endurance
With no emotional assurance
Singing “Good bye July”
For all those getting high
Let’s all raise a glass
And to celebrate at last
The biggest adventure at sea
The story of me
On a lonely road halfway across the country
A girl waits on the corner for life to meet her
A Chevy pickup faded by hard work
Driven by a man hungry for more than what the local coffee shop serves
She feels the cold through her thin red dress
As darkness falls and the wind finds her face in a soft caress
The tail lights flicker as he hesitates for a second
To meet his fate as the road sign beckons
The decisions we make in one split second
Can haunt us forever as regret or a blessing
Should he stop and should she get in
Are the mysteries of life like a coq au vin
Sitting on my lanai sipping my morning coffee as first light peeks over the inlet on its journey from the eastern sea
Divine office fills my ears and memories fill my thoughts
Not long ago I sat on another east facing lanai, sipping coffee, admiring the morning light on the pond
As bicyclers pedalled by and dog walkers waved acknowledging my bathrobe clad presence
I thought I preferred the privacy I have now
But I miss the silent awareness of then somehow
Time passes offering distance and lessons
On the juxtaposition of wanting more and letting it all just be
“What is a Screamie Bird?”
The thing that squawks with colorful curls?
I hear the question when they read the word
What else could it be, it sounds so absurd
Listen closely, it’s about a girl
She walks around town with a book in one hand
And a transistor radio in the other
On the beach playing music from her favorite band
Telling secrets with words written in the sand
That threaten to blow her mother’s cover
At night you may find her with Earthquake Ethel
Dancing til dawn and breakfast with Norm
Better than proposals from Craig at Bethel
As boring and predictable as Old Faithful
She likes her pancakes crusty, sweet and warm
A Screamie bird is not what you think it is
No feathers or bill or found in a herd
Stumbling across one is hit or miss
A Screamie bird is hard to resist
A rare breed these days this kind of bird
If “screamie” is “singer” and “bird” is a “girl”
A “Screamie Bird” can only be one thing
According to the Beatles of Liverpool
Penning the one about a hill and a fool
The question now is “can the bird sing?”
A new shiny house spoke to me one more time
Open plan they called it to sit and stir without reason or rhyme
But thinkers and feelers like to cook in silence
Sipping and soaking and lapping up the quiet
Not surrounded by crowds and minions
with opinions
I began to miss the old house I’d left behind
The one with walls and counters and storage for wine
Alone with thoughts and plans with pen in hand
To roam about without signaling my intentions, small or grand
Dancing and dreaming with my own rock band
The dream at the beginning started so simply
But with each new house builders became so greedy
Removing walls as if we all were one
Racing to the end with nothing more than a staple gun
Where did the carpet go
Did anybody even know
The place where the kids and dogs and kittens would play
Sure it got scruffy with love and wear day after day
But the mysteries of tile so hard to clean
and worse under the soft pads of feet
Demanded my time sacrificing writing and playing and even my sleep
Words words words
My head screams in silence
Sounds of music soothe me
But the night demands the quiet
My mind reels from nighttime reading
Searching for answers in visual cues
The photos lure me as they see me
The screen blinks in shadowy hues
Counting down to the first light of dawn
As the world awakens in a gradual shift
The weakness of the night reveals what is strong
And my worries and fears are set free to drift
Screamie Birds Studios 