Beauty is free, you don’t have to pay
Just take a look around
Beauty is free, beauty is everywhere
In the air and on the ground
There’s beauty in the eyes of the ones
Who stand right next to you
It adds up to harmony,
Beauty is free

All things are soft when you soften
Colours grow bright when you see
It’s not what you do nor how often
It’s all about how you be

Beauty is free in a mother’s love
In the eyes of a child
Beauty is free in the city
No less than in the wild
There’s beauty in your eyes
A beauty that never lies
So be careful how you see
Beauty is free

The juice is so sweet when you taste it
When you tell the truth, you’ll believe
You can’t use up beauty or waste it
There’s no way for beauty to leave

God is truth and god is beauty
God is love and god is joy
God is in the baby and momma,
God is in the girl and boy
So look into the eyes of a stranger
Look in the nighttime sky
When you truly see,
Beauty is free

Don’t live your life for duty
Don’t waste your time loving me
Save all your love for the beauty
That shines in us all for free

Beauty is inside, beauty is outside
Beauty is under your skin
Your birthright is all about beauty
You don’t have to wait to begin

I realize many fleeting things
Words which seek speaking, leaking
Pressure building, questions unasked
Slip into the past while possible answers
Dance in sketch-comedy skits
On the flickering screen of my-nd

Behind me they drag, bits and bytes
Alphas and betas of failed insight
One-way communication skating
On one leg, clapping one-handed

I want to know where the boundaries are
Where the electrified fences, defenses,
And Thou shalt not passes have grown
In the shadows outside our speaking

Hints and mixed messages spawn
Guessing games, speculations running wild
In curiosity’s brain, desire thwarted
By careful adherence to etiquette of
Unspeaking agreements

If I know where not to go, be assured
I will scrupulous be but this nebulosity
Is breeding insanity

In case it fails the test of ‘obviousness,’
Let me say, this is not your doing
But my own
My unspoken words live here
Etiquette defined by my own fear

Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel
The litany of life in the twentieth century
This new millennial venturing into faith
Still fails as often as it feeds

So, the question is asked; my task now
Is to release it.

I went to a voice workshop today that turned out to be just as much about songwriting as singing; in fact, we each wrote two songs as part of the day. Here are mine.

The assignment for the first was this: write what is unsaid. In other words, whatever we are afraid to say.

The Hunger

Held-back hunger, return to womb
Swimming through darkness, turned to tomb
Like a fish in the river, like a wave on the sea
This weighty feeling, this gravity
The sea overhead is pressing me down
In its deep sweet darkness I drown

Opening bottom, aching for light
Hoping in boredom, itching for fight
Who is the hero, who the enemy?
Like a lurker in the shadows I wait and see

Hold me in your arms and never let me go
Or I’ll slip between your cracks like sifting snow
Like the rhythm of the night, the great starry void
In the chanting, secret caverns lies the truth I avoid

What are the questions for the answers I desire?
I chop through the brush but the woods grow higher
Til the world has shrunken to the size of a pea
I swallow it like medicine to help me see

Lurking in the shadows, wait and see
Take me to the bottom, lift me to the light
Save me from boredom, don’t make me fight
Who’ll be my hero, where’s my enemy?

The assignment for the next song was: write a song for yourself, then sing it.

Obvious

Don’t you worry about your life
Your next step will be obvious
Listen to your own truth, the song in your heart
Will teach you what you most need to know
Let go of that load on your mind
Close your eyes, it’s time to travel blind
You’ve senses beyond your sight
Listen to the guidance of the light
And walk into the darkness of the night

The stars overhead all know who you are
You’re their sister, their friend and their lover
Like then you are a part of a galaxy of stars
You have access to more help than you know
When you let down your barriers
And let your lovelight show

This is a window into life
Open it now, the choice is obvious
When you wake up your body,
You’ll stretch out your wings
And fly where you need to go
You’ve senses beyond your sight
Listen to the guidance of the light
And walk into the darkness of the night

The earth underfoot knows you like a child
She is a resource, your source and your mother
She cradles you in comfort, she lets your feet run wild
You have access to more help than you know
When you let down your barriers
And let your lovelight show

This is a window into life
Open it now, the choice is obvious
When you wake up your body,
You’ll stretch out your wings
And fly where you need to go

When you wake up your body,
You’ll stretch out your wings
And fly where you need to go
This is a window into life
Open it now, the choice is obvious

When it came time to sing the songs, I was impressed by Edwin’s virtuosity on the piano. He could play along with any of our faltering rhythms and fledgling melodies, support the song and make it sound rehearsed. It was an amazing experience to have a brand-new song accompanied right out of the gate…I tend to write the melodies first then sweat out an arrangement on the guitar much later. Lovely!

The secret chambers of the heart
Are not for public judgment
Yet the urge to spill our hidden blood
Is irresistible

Hence the blogging craze in which we
broadcast everything including
bathroom habits (I pee on the ground),
Nose-picking proclivities (yes, when no one is watching)
And lovelorn afflictions (no, he doesn’t love me enough).

Spilling our whine is good for the soul
And that is why confessionals are popular
Reading others’ purgatories
Makes us feel better about our own hell

So do tell: spill your guts
but watch for those hungry crows

Everything is privatized these days
Save the self

Sun slanting in through picture window
Loving this rotational global warming
Naturally blessed with reliable light
After cold spring, I despaired,
Waiting for temperature to rise.
Weather connects strongly to mood
I’m hardwired to depression in grey and cold
And my upliftment in spring’s sun is
Positively Pavlovian.

I bask, glory in rays that radiate
From nuclear furnace in the center of sky
I resist not. If cancer wants me, it can have me.
Sunworshipper, I seek shade if the sun is too much, but
Shan’t slather chemicals on my skin to
Separate self from the oldest god there is

Today, the sun’s alchemy
brightens birds, breakers,
snowcaps and clouds
to dazzling brilliance
beyond mere white.
Indigo, lapis and teal seas
roll in perpetual motion
witnessed by distance-misted
lavender mountains.

Air, chill in shade,
heats happily in sun’s rays.
Eagles’ chittering scree
blends with seabirds’ keening,
brewed into synesthetic stew
with reek of rotting herring roe,
mellowed by woodsmoke.

Every sense comes alive,
every cell revives
jubilating in vividness.
Here, where sea meets land,
Earth’s blessings are
most bountiful. Where
wind strokes skin, bringing
malodorous decay
and clamourous continuance,
life and death are one
and the same.

Elusive poetry beckons,
becomes mundane, emptied
of meaning
I seek to speak deeper
than mind, to find
poems swimming in
my fishy depths
Slick visions escape my grasp
nibble coy at fingertips

I cast the unbaited hook
barbless, fish for
a volunteer sacrifice
an emergent dream that
dares to become a poem

I lose, I humble self
Confess my desperate need
for greedy mouths
to feed, to ease my aching
engorged brain
this fullness finds no relief
Please, paint me pictures
of truth, be it blessing
or bane

I beg, sink to their depths
Breathe their water
Die their death

Writing about fabric is like
singing about colour
or painting the sound of music
Words are clumsy tools
to transmit the feel of felt

Anyone who sews knows
material, its many moods,
its medley of makes
Shimmering silk, sleek satin,
Lush velvet, tough denim

I would rather caress
than converse about cloth,
I would rather admire
than try to define
its warp, weft, selvage

Textiles have no translation,
being innocent of subtext
I stroke silk and velvet
My skin finds comfort
in its blind, braille world

Myriad miseries and masteries
revolve and evolve inside me,
each day/hour/minute/second revealing
a new facet of my self-crafted gem,
spinning through self-negation, self-relation,
self-deception, self-perception,
self-immolation, self-revelation
and onward til each shard
is purified, polished and pristine.
On that blissful day shall I emerge
whole, stainless and free.

When will that be?
Not today, but that’s okay;
just now I’m working the uber-task
(self-acceptance itself),
striving to include all aspects
from pathetic to perfect in
my mobile montage of phee-ness.

Whatever is left will then direct
its glittering gaze upon the rest,
for purposes I needn’t
know about now.

The Way To Say Goodbye

That’s the way the cookie crumbles
That’s the way an icon tumbles.
That’s the way the snow flies in July.
Tell me if I’ve been mistaken
Tell me if my heart is breaking;
Tell me, brother, tell me, tell me why?
Is that the way to say goodbye?

That’s the way the plate glass shatters;
that’s the way a dropped dish clatters.
That’s the way the sun falls from the sky.
Tell me, did my eyes deceive me?
Tell me if I can believe me;
Tell me how to tell truth from a lie;
tell me, tell me how to say goodbye.

That’s the way the twilight falls;
that’s the way a nightbird calls.
That’s the way the moon lights up the night sky.
Tell me that I’m on my own now;
tell me just how strong I’ve grown now;
tell me that it’s time for me to fly.
Tell me, tell me, brother, goodbye.

That’s the way the story goes;
that’s the way a flower grows.
That’s the way a newborn baby cries.
Tell me that the earth is quaking;
tell me that the dawn is breaking,
I can love you like the eagle loves the sky;
and that’s the way I say goodbye.