Saturday, December 12, 2009

Modus Operandi

I'm a visual person. I know this. Were I to start life over and be forced to follow some path other than music, I'm pretty sure I'd choose photography. Imagery resonates in 85% of my lyrics. Metaphors, similes, personifications - that's the poetry of which most of my words flow.

"Tears of twilight fading into view
Each one a reason that I am here with you."
--Half Moon Bay, 1993

I say this because I'm at an interesting juncture in my life. I'm in a state of mind where my thoughts are less visual and *MUCH* more... I don't know. Not visceral - just not pictorial.

The politics of the world continue to aggravate me. The fact that people are dying in Iraq for example - the haunted faces of people I see in the news - just wounds me. That someone could be _legally_ killed because they're gay and HIV+ incites a rage that I don't know how to contain.

I need to unleash in the WORST way. The blood of my soul needs to be spilled upon the fabric of my melodies. But the words falter die on the page. Their sarcophagus litter my notebooks like a madman's scribbles - bursts from nowhere vomited upon a taupe page, leading nowhere.

I'm not a word-smith and I know this. "So Glad..." and a couple other tunes stand out in my memory as times when I managed to overcome this deficiency. It frustrates me in ways I can't begin to explain - a need to vent in a manner I am not capable.

IT. HURTS.

And yet a mere smile caught in a photograph can still melt my heart a bit. The fuzzy light and indescribable warmth I feel when a person is caught just so. The shyness, the simplicity, the vulnerability... I just fall apart and start brewing emotions inside my mind.

I've got quite a few songs started now - many started just recently. I wonder how many of them I will finish composing. Seems like there's always more tunes being written than *get* written.

But... still. Those things I need to say... Those things I need to ferment into songs... I hope they happen soon. I hope I find the manner by which to facilitate their birth.

And then hope they get received...

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