I studied poetry as the focus of my Creative Writing Major at Vanderbilt University.

While I initially was a staunch advocate for free form poetry, this education came in extra handy once i decided to explore lyrics in the context of music. I was trained in how to write exactly within the boundaries of meter, form, and structure. This skill has been a gift, in that I can work with the rhythm of words' phrasing, and meticulously match all the syllables and rhymes - and/or totally break the rules.

Sometimes structure creates boundaries within which freedom is even more creatively able to be explored.

My life is my poetry and my poetry is my passion. I hope you enjoy them!

OTTER OWLS AND YIN YANG HOWLS

I am congregating with my skin

My pores are pickling

I am breathing in and out

My lungs like toes are tickling

 

And we are the ones who makes everything fun

except when we are done and we’d rather just run

From the speech masquerading as soul, squirrels are climbing a pole,

just to eat all the seeds that fall effortlessly,

should they wait and be patiently baited

like all of the rest of the grass blades who mated

for life On the ground, speaking silence with sound.

Whooo

 

And the metaphysical sleuths throw snowballs at you,

one upping the obvious schtupping of goo,

left behind when ice melts into stains on your pelt,

and you’ve nothing to say ‘cept perhaps how you felt

But you don’t. Because how real are feelings if illusion

is melting into ones and zeros of silent congealing confusion.

That finally makes sense. Or does it? Or will it eventually?

So why bother, really?

 

And it’s safe behind the walls of abstraction

where we meet each other without real interaction

And the Oneness and twoness of eyeballs in unison
meet in the middle where they try to fiddle

and greet one another, but fools fall asunder

the tritisms of an electrical fence

that sizzles and fizzles and cowers when bent.

By the blissfully unrequited satisfaction

Of hearts that pulse in rhythmic refractions

And songs that fly like owls

And satiate the yin yang’s howls

 

And the soft words that melt

All the snowfall away

They’re ironically timed

Like the clock and the chime

Never really face to face

But floating gently in outer space

Where the cosmos roars

And the otters play

And laugh

As they always do.

And music is love.

Below and above.