A Liquid Song

Slip, slidin' away

It’s been a busy few days in Lake Wobegon (a wink and a nod to Garrison Keillor). I was off to my alma mater, Albertus Magnus College, to speak to a writing class. We had a ball! (More on that later)

For today, I thought it might be fun to circle back to one of my first posts, for those of you who weren’t there for the kick off. May, 2023

Enjoy! I’ll be back next week with a new and exciting episode.

Dreaming at Café Beaujolais

Several years ago, well, alright, many years ago, I wrote a few songs which included images I had had in my dreams. A performance of A LIQUID SONG was recorded in Café Beaujolais, on Main St, Gloucester, MA. I had a weekly gig there and would bring along various fabulous musicians to play along…Roberto Cassan on accordion; Ludvig Girtland, jazz violin; Thomas Hebb, bass; Matt Taylor on percussion. My oh my, did we have fun! It was a little joint, probably 20 tables.

I recently combined that old song with some excerpts from recent writings. I’ve included the Café Beaujolais recording at the end of this post. Enjoy. Take your own trip through your mysterious unconscious!

MINDBENDING

I’m going to sail far out into the sea

I’m going to drift where no one else has gone

The birds will swim above my head and the fish will fly beneath me

and I shall float and sing a liquid song

I imagine what it was going through the mind of the fisherman who drowned at sea, at night, in winter, off Gloucester.  I am blinded by flashes of light, walls of water. The air is thick with the strain of engines, sirens, shouting, sparks and the small pops of electricity. We watch desperately the last flickerings of light and then ...  a booming explosion!!!  As if in a silent film, I see us flying in black and white slow motion, rising, rising...momentarily weightless...then falling, falling, faces contorted in a kinetoscope of silent screams, limbs spread wide in suspended supplication. And now I can hear you all, the slapping sound of your arms, your legs.  I hear your sharp cries dying into the darkness. Then I lose you, the three of you, my dear, wild friends.

I’m going to climb way up into the snows

I’ll be above where any tree can grow

The girl rests her hand on the scraggy bark of a locust tree and explains her ability

to become one with the tree. “What I do is I mainly try to feel what the tree is feeling,

I try to put myself in the place of it, try to rationalize its existence…like, what would it be like if my cognition was centered in a way of living like a tree. If you get in that mind state enough, then you start to connect to these things.”

The air will sing a violent song and try to steal the day

and I will hear the wail upon the wind

I invent a conversation with my sister, whose brilliant mind is being devoured by the unstoppable hot lava flow of Lewy body dementia. You are slowly losing your mind, clinging to your grip on the day-to-day.  You are now the family canary-in-the-coal mine, speaking the innocent truth, laying bare all the inner faults, limitations and neuroses that the rest of us are still capable of disguising with the quick two-step of Irish wit.

I’m going to walk upon the desert sands

to white expanses as of yet unknown

     In the main lounge of the dementia unit in the afternoon, residents sing If You Knew Suzie Like I Knew Suzie, Oh, Oh, Oh What a Gal along with the piano player.  One of the residents, Lucie, 85, wears a lovely cardigan sweater with flower appliqués and large pockets.  She moves around the room with the assurance of a lifetime of good fortune, graciously commenting, ‘isn’t the music divine’ and ‘oh, what a beautiful day’ and ‘my, your hair looks lovely!’

     As the player-piano begins Tiptoe Through the Tulips with a flashy arpeggio, Lucie wanders over to a corner of the dining room, glances furtively around the room, then stuffs a handful of silverware into her pocket.

and mighty lizards come to and tell of green oasis

where I can feel and drink what they can see

Excerpt from a poem by my dear friend Richard Woolmer:

Some days his thoughts had feet and jumped ‘round corners...

One night when the day had gone and the sky hatched tiny stars,

he stood on the steps of a long sentence and left himself behind.

A Liquid Song, by Kate Sullivan: