Kyrie (and Moonsong)

So, I got a MacBook Pro. It's awesome. I've set up a little recording studio in my room, which currently consists of my computer and my keyboard, which I've hooked up to the computer. Music projects are significantly easier when you don't have to use the iMac in the middle of the house where people are constantly talking or cooking or whatever when you're trying to record. Of course, I have to keep the door and windows closed with no fans going, so it gets hot. But it's the price you pay!

Anyway, this is the first project I've recorded with the computer. Although I'm still using a built-in computer microphone to record, this laptop has the best microphone of any computer I've ever owned, and it sounds, to my ear, pretty good. Also, the fact that I'm able to input MIDI directly from my keyboard into GarageBand has upped the sound quality significantly. I can now experiment with synthetic sounds much more easily than before.

So, I have attempted to explore my desire to write choral music with the tools I have on hand, and this is what I came up with. Tell me what you think!

Just for contrast, here is another project I created in GarageBand. Remember that sonnet I wrote about the moon? Well, before I figured out how to hook up my Yamaha keyboard to the computer, I decided to create a sort of ambient soundtrack for that poem. I created all the music using musical typing, and recorded the vocals in the occasional moments I was home alone. For me, the biggest difference is in what I'm now able to do musically; musical typing is... restrictive, to say the least. (Also, I like the fact that I didn't have to come up with actual lyrics for the Kyrie. That was nice. It makes it significantly less melodramatic.)

Thoughts and comments are very appreciated. Thanks for reading and listening.

The next challenge: Figuring out how to make beats!

Overgrown

Your hands are temples,

Elegant architecture,

Alabaster; let your

Foundation fall, swallow

The empty, earthen hollow

In me, deep.

For when you leave,

The walls grow luminous,

Ruinous, gone to us:

A forgotten room. And

Soon, these seeds sown

Seek light, tight, choking,

In me, overgrown.

$3 a face

I've decided that I'd like a lot more of my poetry available to be read here on my blog, so I'm going to be going through some of my older stuff and posting it periodically. Here's one I wrote about two years ago.

$3 a face

I saw a man
On the streets of San Francisco
With an easel
And a table
And a sign that said: “Portraits: $3 a face”

He sat,
Ready, for three whole dollars,
To poorly recreate, in marks of colored dirt
Any one of a hundred thousand perfect little masterpieces
That God sculpted for
Absolutely
Nothing.

Perhaps,
Like some sort of psychic,
He could read the lines on your face
As a palm reader reads those
On your hand,
And silently explain, with brushes on paper
The truth about yourself
That you knew all along
And didn’t want to admit.

Perhaps, I thought
Those $3 are not for the portrait itself
But for his insight;
You could know, just from those hasty brushstrokes
Whether you were truly happy
Or sad
Or hated
Or loved.

I paused, hands in pockets
In front of him,
Surveying the fluttering faces hung before me,
Sketches of souls on display for all to see;
Some beautiful,
Some not.

His strange, dark eyes found mine;
I smiled, fingering my wallet
And turned,
And walked away.
--


I'd love to hear what you think of this poem. When I first wrote it, my church choir director asked if I would read it for the choir and use it as a springboard for a small devotional. The funny thing is, he had interpreted it to mean the exact opposite of what I'd intended. Which brings up an interesting question, I suppose: should the poet and the reader agree on the meaning of a poem? Personally, I was pleasantly surprised that someone had seen what I'd written from a different angle. It was good for me to have someone point out that things like this are open to interpretation (and/or maybe I should just learn how to write more clearly). Reading it now, this seems a significantly less awesome poem that I'd originally thought...

Anyway, I still read the poem for the choir, albeit so nervously that I was asked to read it twice. I think they liked it. And it worked well for the devotional. So, happy ending. The end.

Morning

This morning,

I woke to find my

Bedroom full of gold.

Someone must have

Come in the night, and while I slept

Draped it over my bed

In rippling swaths;

It clings to the corners like

Cobwebs, like

Just-remembered joy.

Untitled No. 2

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person." --John Green

Untitled #2 (Blue)

Blue.

Simple, human-- it suits you

Or it did, then.

I remember blue;

I remember “Hello.”

But then I fell,

Like the shadow I am,

At your feet: a feeble imitation.

My hands strung with thread

To the tips of

Your fingers,

I dance, silent.

Now,

I see you only in black,

Mirrored fragments, grinning and godlike,

Inky footprints fresh across my mind.

You left an ember

In my chest;

I burned to ash.

Time passed--

I forgot what you are. Forgive me;

Perhaps one day I'll

See you again

In blue.

Is that YOUR watermelon?

I haven't written an anecdote-style post on this blog yet, so I figured it was time to change that. Plus, I just discovered the ingenious blog, Hyperbole and a Half, so I wanted to try writing something funny. I will probably fail. Here goes.

I was in Safeway yesterday, helping my mom with groceries. I don't really mind grocery shopping, as grocery stores are an endless source of entertainment for me. As long as you're shopping with someone, you can spend the entire time making random, funny observations. (Although in retrospect, said observations are usually less witty than I originally thought).

Some examples:

-Red Plums resemble internal organs. A good way to point this out is to offer one to the person nearest you and say, “kidney?”

-Bananas secretly rule the world. I mean, look at them. They're invariably arranged around their very own Aztec-style pyramid. At night, they probably cut the pits out of the plums and cast the hollow, dripping carcasses down the temple steps in ritual sacrifice.

-That guy behind the counter at the deli is watching you. The creepy one with the big knife. Yeah, that guy. He's watching you.

So anyway, I was annoying my mom with such observations when she noticed that hair conditioner was on the shopping list. I'm guessing she was glad of the opportunity to be rid of me for a few moments, because she pointed me to the right aisle and told me to go find some.

I'd been staring at the selection of hair-care products for barely a minute when a man suddenly came striding around the corner, pointing at me accusingly.

"Is that your watermelon?" he demanded.

My brain did a quick inventory check. Hands: empty. Pockets: empty. Purse: tiny. 

Error 404: watermelon not found. Still, this guy seemed pretty sure I was guilty of something, so I decided not to deny anything in case he was right and I'd inadvertently acquired a watermelon. Several seconds passed as I tried to formulate a response. Finally I said, "What?"

He pointed again, forcefully. "That watermelon. Is it yours?"

Realizing that he was pointing behind me, I turned. There on the floor, right next to a display of toothbrushes, sat a single, lonely watermelon.

Relief washed over me. I wasn't guilty. He could take me into the Safeway interrogation room and I could look him straight in the face and say that I'd never seen that watermelon before in my life. I had alibis. I was innocent.

I shook my head perhaps a little too emphatically. 

"No," I said.

Without another word, he stormed past me and snatched the melon off the floor. Cradling it like an errant child, he proceeded to convey it back to the produce section.

It was a little while before I remembered what I'd been doing. Eventually, I found the conditioner I was looking for, and took it to my mom. She laughed when I told her what had just happened, and shopping continued as normal.

We were just passing the pharmacy when the man reappeared. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, the light glinting off of his Safeway name-tag as he haphazardly straightened items on the shelves. He was like an angry, very tidy whirlwind. Don't come any closer, I thought. Don't come up to us.

Of course he did.

"Finding everything alright?" he asked in an intense tone of voice generally reserved for sentences like, "Do you need help escaping this burning building?"

I nodded absently, afraid to make eye contact. I couldn't imagine anything more awkward than meeting the eye of a man who had just moments before accused me of watermelon possession. Fortunately, my mom was there, and she politely told him that yes, we were finding everything just fine and thank you very much [please go away].

Apparently satisfied, he hurried off to vigorously rearrange the next shelf in his path.

"Paul Blart, Safeway employee," I remarked very quietly. "That's the watermelon guy."

Mom laughed. "He must be the manager or something."

Probably. I wasn't going to ask, though. Way too dangerous.

Don't get me wrong, Safeway is great; but between watermelon man and that one annoyingly over-helpful employee (I mean, for Pete's sake, lady-- we went to the self-checkout so we could avoid any kind of human interaction), it can be an interesting place to shop. 

Worth the trouble? Donuts say yes.

This City

I feel bad for not writing. So here's an old poem that I wrote almost a year ago.
--
This City

I am the breath of this city
Gasoline lifeblood crawling asphalt veins
This raging, pumping heart's
Chaotic rhythm
Mine.

I am the eyes of this city
Burning spotlights tracing prison walls
These tinted lenses etched with
Fractured beauty
Gone.

I am the ears of this city
Unsettled crowds applauding abstract themes
These clashing, caustic hopes'
Forgotten promise
Lies.

I am the voice of this city
A humming drone feeding countless mouths
This jigsaw puzzle beehive's
Daily labor
Song.