Songwriting Without Boundaries Read online

  STAN SWINIARSKI

  The land of the smokers’ last revenge

  Lights flash, bells are ringing

  Like a siren that calls my last dime to its death

  Let me hear that temptress singing

  My arm’s getting weary with every pull

  Buttons have no hold on me

  The lights flash and give me its promising thrill

  I will have my victory

  Blue-hairs and blue-collars standing in line

  Hoping for a loose machine

  I gallantly give up my space this time, so

  Someone else could live this dream

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  She’s parked at the one armed bandit

  Her quarters in a plastic cup

  Sipping her fifth gin and tonic

  Hoping for lady luck

  Her hair’s a hornet’s nest of blue

  Eyes rheumy with the smoke

  She’s humming a dirty little tune

  A cross gleaming at her throat

  The jangle of the coins is heaven falling

  And silence is hell on earth

  She lives for the thrill that fortune’s calling

  Her winnings define her worth

  The carousel music enfolds her

  She’s drunk on neon light

  This jackpot hope will hold her

  Till day runs into night

  Both of these take me to the casino. I especially like Stan’s use of the organic (body) sense: “My arm’s getting weary with every pull.” Note also the consonance rhyme pull/thrill. Susan’s bandit/tonic is interesting—dit/ic is a weak syllable family rhyme, and ban/ton is a consonance rhyme. They also match shapes, moving stressed to unstressed.

  You try.

  5 minutes: Deep-Sea Diver

  ADRIANA DUARTE

  You’re a lonely deep sea diver

  Always wanting more

  Just another tipsy driver

  Serve another pour

  CHANELLE DAVIS

  My flashlight is a lonely moon

  Shining in the dark

  The ocean sings a silent tune

  A night without its stars

  Maybe they are buried here

  Somewhere in the sand

  Slow your breathing, lose the fear

  Underwater man

  I love Adriana’s metaphor: a drunk, diving deep into a sea of alcohol. In second person, Chanelle puts you immediately underwater with “my flashlight is a lonely moon.” Metaphors abound. Her last two lines are commands, turning first person into second person—making it feel like he’s talking to himself.

  Your turn.

  DAY #11

  TETRAMETER AND PENTAMETER

  Today you’ll work in an extended form, in six-line units rhyming aabccb, with tetrameter couplets and pentameter following lines.

  As you’ve already seen, tetrameter couplets subdivide into units of two, creating an unrelenting march of the smallest sections possible. This time, create a section that doesn’t end until the final line. It’ll feel better; more interesting.

  Start here:

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

  Fallen away from the red mountain top

  But now try throwing the tetrameter couplet off balance by inserting a five-stress (pentameter) line:

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks 4-stress

  Fallen away from the red mountain top 4-stress

  Dúst on the hórses, spréading all óver the town 5-stress

  You can feel the IOU. The five-stress pentameter line creates a push forward, not only because it creates an odd number of lines, but because it doesn’t rhyme either. Now add another tetrameter couplet:

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

  Fallen away from the red mountain top

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town

  Color of blood, the color of pain

  Some of these children won’t breathe again

  You can feel the urgency. The structure is asking you to match line line 3, both in length (pentameter) and rhyme.

  Like this:

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

  Fallen away from the red mountain top

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town

  Color of blood, the color of pain

  Some of these children won’t breathe again

  Dúst like a ghóst cloud swírling and púlling you dówn

  Of course, there are rhyme variations possible. What if the tetrameter lines didn’t rhyme?

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and shale

  Fallen away from the red mountain top

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town

  Color of blood, the color of soot

  Some of these children won’t breathe again

  Dust like a ghost cloud swirling and pulling you down

  Now the structure feels more relaxed. The push forward is milder, generated only by line length, since the first rhyme doesn’t occur until the very last syllable.

  Today you’ll rhyme your ten-minute piece aabccb, and your five-minute piece xxaxxa, following the model:

  Tetrameter a

  Tetrameter a

  Pentameter b

  Tetrameter c

  Tetrameter c

  Pentameter b

  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 the whole time, whether or not you complete your final section. Don’t panic. It’ll be challenging, but fun.

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  10 minutes: War Zone (aabccb)

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  Ravaged concrete lies in rubble

  Sirens screaming, the town’s in trouble

  Airplanes buzz like gnats through open skies

  Duck and cover, hide your fear

  Soldiers march, the tanks are near

  Creeping over the pitted land like flies

  Bombs sing through smoke and air

  Dropping death with utmost care

  The beast of war is here and on the prowl

  Savage talons tear and claw

  Wings of steel, a gaping maw

  The fearful earth shudders as it howls

  ROB GILES

  Black and white pictures, darkening blood

  Piles of mothers and babies in mud

  Prints, they float like bodies face up in the fixer

  CNN news crews laugh by their tents

  Meters away, the dead broken and bent

  Ghosts from a war zone crying thru 8x10 pictures

  Note how Rob uses his cc lines to shift the focus to the reporters. It’s an effective use of form that takes advantage of the change in rhyme sound to support the change in perspective. Susan does the same thing in lines 4 and 5, introducing a command to shift the tone at the same time the new rhyme sound appears. Form is a road map. It tells you where to go.

  There are effective metaphor and simile in each one, too, as well as provocative sense-bound language.

  Note how much content their rhymes contain:

  Rubble Blood

  Trouble Mud

  Skies Fixer

  Fear Tents

  Near Bent

  Flies Pictures

  Air

  Care

  Prowl

  Claw

  Maw

  Howls

  You get so much of the story just from the rhyme positions! The rhyming positions are in the spotlights. Use them. (See my Essential Guide to Rhyming on this point.)

  Try it out.

  5 minutes: Wildflowers (xxaxxa)

  CHANELLE DAVIS

  Wildflowers growing in the neighbour’s field

  Cupcake sprinkles in the summer green

  Bees hover and roll in their sticky pollen

  Jump the fence to pick a few

  Bunch them up in my old shirt
<
br />   Quickly home before they know I stole ’em

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  Clover droops its purple head

  Daisies dancing in the breeze

  Clouds are skipping through an ocean sky

  The meadow dappled emerald green

  Bees hover like helicopters

  Summer gives a small contented sigh

  Whatever motion there is comes from line lengths matching and unmatching, not from rhyme. These sections feel like they float with only rhythm driving the bus, since we don’t hear a rhyme until the end. It seems appropriate for the dreamy subject, wildflowers. Chanelle’s consonance rhyme pollen/stole ’em refuses to close the dreaming down. Even Susan’s perfect rhyme just barely gets the screen door closed. Both create wonderful pictures and buttress them with metaphor.

  Again, note how much of the story is told from the end-line positions.

  Your turn.

  DAY #12

  COMMON METER

  AND PENTAMETER

  One thing you’ll notice about rhyming aabccb: The couplets still produce a stop sign, especially the first couplet (aa). Rather than letting your section subdivide at the end of line 2, try creating a section that doesn’t end until the final line.

  Start with the two unequal first lines of common meter:

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

  The color of blood and pain

  Now, instead of continuing the common meter, insert a pentameter line:

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

  The color of blood and pain

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town

  Though there are no rhymes (yet), you can feel the instability and the need to keep moving forward. Try a tetrameter line, rhyming with line 1:

  STRESSES RHYME SCHEME

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks 4 a

  The color of blood and pain 3 b

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town 5 c

  Fallen away from the red mountaintop 4 a

  You’ve matched line 1, so now you’ve raised expectations that the sequence will continue, will push forward:

  STRESSES RHYME SCHEME

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks 4 a

  The color of blood and pain 3 b

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town 5 c

  Fallen away from the red mountaintop 4 a

  On children who won’t breathe again 3 b

  Now you’ve got to complete the series:

  STRESSES RHYME SCHEME

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks 4 a

  The color of blood and pain 3 b

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town 5 c

  Fallen away from the red mountaintop 4 a

  On children who won’t breathe again 3 b

  Dust like a ghost cloud swirling and pulling them down 5 c

  Again, you have options with the rhyme scheme. Here are two, the first, unrhyming lines 1, 2, 4, and 5 to create an xxaxxa rhyme scheme:

  STRESSES RHYME SCHEME

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks 4 x

  The color of blood and shale 3 x

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town 5 a

  Fallen away from the red mountainside 4 x

  On children who won’t breathe again 3 x

  Dust like a ghost cloud swirling and pulling them down 5 a

  Now the long third and sixth pentameter lines provide the main glue, creating a six-line section that keeps moving all the way to the end.

  Of course, you can use more rhymes, too. You can rhyme the second and fourth common meter lines, creating an xabxab rhyme scheme:

  STRESSES RHYME SCHEME

  Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks 4 x

  The color of blood and pain 3 a

  Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town 5 b

  Fallen away from the red mountainside 4 x

  On children who won’t breathe again 3 a

  Dust like a ghost cloud swirling and pulling them down 5 b

  I like options. They allow you to match the mood of the section—tight or loose.

  Today you’ll work with common meter and pentameter, creating six-line sections that move forward until the end.

  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 the whole time, whether or not you complete your final section.

  Rhyme your ten-minute piece abcabc, and your five-minute piece xxaxxa.

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  10 minutes: Morning Walk (abcabc)

  STAN SWINIARSKI

  Sneakers that patter on fresh morning sidewalks

  The rhythm starts the day

  Smells of wet grass, sprinklers wetting the greens

  Peaceful as dreaming, the morning bird’s talks

  Lead me on my way

  Feeling the sky’s welcoming yawn to me

  Ladies pass by with their gossip and iPods

  The colors that I see

  Bright-colored sweatsuits in their full morning bloom

  Men in their khakis being led by their dogs

  Greeting every tree

  They will be off to their workday very soon

  ANDREA STOLPE

  Walking alone down the matted path

  I weave a trail through the wood

  Listening closely to the sound of my breath, exhaling

  Bundled and warm in a fleece jacket

  I gently untie my hood

  As the sweet scent of poplars takes me away, sailing

  As opposed to yesterday’s tetrameter/pentameter pieces, see how the shorter second line pushes forward without the help of rhyme. If fact, you don’t hear the first rhyme until the end of line 4. In Andrea’s piece, path/jacket is a partial rhyme—only the stressed syllables (path/jack) rhyme while an unstressed syllable (et) hangs over.

  Both pieces take you on a nice walk with their sense-bound language.

  Now, you do it.

  5 minutes: Traffic Cop (xxaxxa)

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  At the intersection of Bow and First

  He’s Moses parting seas

  A prophet of the asphalt, shining black with tar

  In orange vest and polished boots

  He preens and strikes a pose

  His hand conducts a symphony of cars

  CHANELLE DAVIS

  He waves his arms left and right

  Blasts his whistle and frowns

  The morning traffic slowly stops and starts

  Each car like a drop of blood

  Pumped down the plastic tube

  Into the city, into its beating heart

  Even without rhymes in the tetrameter and trimeter lines, the line lengths push forward pretty strongly. For a deeper look, see chapter sixteen, “Understanding Motion,” in Writing Better Lyrics. It’s true, however, that without the xxaxxa rhyme scheme relaxes the forward push.

  Check out the metaphors in Susan’s piece, and the simile in Chanelle’s.

  Your turn.

  DAY #13

  COMMON METER

  AND PENTAMETER

  Again today you’ll work with common meter and pentameter, creating six-line sections that move forward until the end.

  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 the whole time, whether or not you complete your final section.

  Rhyme your ten-minute piece abcabc, and your five-minute piece xabxab.

  Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

  10 minutes: Trash Collector (abcabc)

  STAN SWINIARSKI

  Rancid old salads and musty wine bottles

  He don’t mind the stuff

  He’s got a pension that many folks would kill for

  Waterlogged cans weigh him down as he toddle
s

  Toward the waiting truck

  Just ten more years and he’s heading for the shore

  Some yearn for pride and some work for status

  That don’t light his fire

  He’s got two kids in college, doing well

  The flies buzz and they swarm but it doesn’t matter

  ’Cause time is on his side

  In the end he knows his time will tell

  Being a surgeon was not in the cards

  He puts his family first

  Seeing them happy quenches this man’s thirst

  Some folks may say that his life is too hard

  Covered in grime and dirt

  But this man know’s what it all is worth

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  Rumbling, lumbering down the street

  Brakes squealing loud

  A metal armored tank that’s stuffed with trash

  Smelling, sweltering, summer heat

  Gunk, rancid and foul

  Dripping on the asphalt like a rash

  Bottles, cans, jelly jars

  Newspapers stacked like towers

  Last night’s chicken bones and totems

  A headless doll, crayon-scarred

  A torn skirt of flowers

  A letter swearing promises now broken

  Everybody’s got their secrets

  Toss them in the can

  Neighbors hide behind their shuttered shades

  It can’t be fixed, so just don’t keep it

  Hearts and hope be damned

  Throw them out and watch the memories fade

  In Stan’s third stanza, notice how the duplication of the rhyme sounds first/thirst/dirt/worth works against the motion created by the line lengths, somewhat confusing the issue with conflicting road signs.

  I like Stan’s portrait of the trash collector and Susan’s lists, especially: “A torn skirt of flowers” and “A letter swearing promises now broken.”

  Both pieces use sense-bound language effectively, provoking images of the weekly trash collection. I can hear the garbage truck coming.

  Your turn.

  5 minutes: Mowing the Lawn (xabxab)

  CHANELLE DAVIS

  Up and down my little lawn

  I push for even lines

  In my tight black singlet, cut-off denim jeans

  A deafening buzz fills the air

  Snowfreeze clouds melt in the sky

  Slashing through the clumps of luscious green

  SUSAN CATTANEO

  His broad, brown back is stooped

  A war of work in his eyes

  Fighting the mower with taut and angled shoulders

  Carving green in pretty rows

  Perfectly aligned

  Machine machete, fallen green soldiers