Songwriting Without Boundaries (50 page)

Ravaged concrete lies in rubble

Sirens screaming, the town’s in trouble

Airplanes buzz like gnats through open skies

Duck and cover, hide your fear

Soldiers march, the tanks are near

Creeping over the pitted land like flies

Bombs sing through smoke and air

Dropping death with utmost care

The beast of war is here and on the prowl

Savage talons tear and claw

Wings of steel, a gaping maw

The fearful earth shudders as it howls

ROB GILES

Black and white pictures, darkening blood

Piles of mothers and babies in mud

Prints, they float like bodies face up in the fixer

CNN news crews laugh by their tents

Meters away, the dead broken and bent

Ghosts from a war zone crying thru 8x10 pictures

Note how Rob uses his cc lines to shift the focus to the reporters. It’s an effective use of form that takes advantage of the change in rhyme sound to support the change in perspective. Susan does the same thing in lines 4 and 5, introducing a command to shift the tone at the same time the new rhyme sound appears. Form is a road map. It tells you where to go.

There are effective metaphor and simile in each one, too, as well as provocative sense-bound language.

Note how much content their rhymes contain:

You get so much of the story just from the rhyme positions! The rhyming positions are in the spotlights. Use them. (See my
Essential Guide to Rhyming
on this point.)

Try it out.

5 minutes: Wildflowers (xxaxxa)

CHANELLE DAVIS

Wildflowers growing in the neighbour’s field

Cupcake sprinkles in the summer green

Bees hover and roll in their sticky pollen

Jump the fence to pick a few

Bunch them up in my old shirt

Quickly home before they know I stole ’em

SUSAN CATTANEO

Clover droops its purple head

Daisies dancing in the breeze

Clouds are skipping through an ocean sky

The meadow dappled emerald green

Bees hover like helicopters

Summer gives a small contented sigh

Whatever motion there is comes from line lengths matching and unmatching, not from rhyme. These sections feel like they float with only rhythm driving the bus, since we don’t hear a rhyme until the end. It seems appropriate for the dreamy subject,
wildflowers.
Chanelle’s consonance rhyme pollen/stole ’em refuses to close the dreaming down. Even Susan’s perfect rhyme just barely gets the screen door closed. Both create wonderful pictures and buttress them with metaphor.

Again, note how much of the story is told from the end-line positions.

Your turn.

DAY #12

COMMON METER
AND PENTAMETER

One thing you’ll notice about rhyming aabccb: The couplets still produce a stop sign, especially the first couplet (aa). Rather than letting your section subdivide at the end of line 2, try creating a section that doesn’t end until the final line.

Start with the two unequal first lines of common meter:

Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

The color of blood and pain

Now, instead of continuing the common meter, insert a pentameter line:

Tumbling and tumbling, boulders and rocks

The color of blood and pain

Dust on the horses, spreading all over the town

Though there are no rhymes (yet), you can feel the instability and the need to keep moving forward. Try a tetrameter line, rhyming with line 1:

You’ve matched line 1, so now you’ve raised expectations that the sequence will continue, will push forward:

Now you’ve got to complete the series:

Again, you have options with the rhyme scheme. Here are two, the first, unrhyming lines 1, 2, 4, and 5 to create an xxaxxa rhyme scheme:

Now the long third and sixth pentameter lines provide the main glue, creating a six-line section that keeps moving all the way to the end.

Of course, you can use more rhymes, too. You can rhyme the second and fourth common meter lines, creating an xabxab rhyme scheme:

I like options. They allow you to match the mood of the section—tight or loose.

Today you’ll work with common meter and pentameter, creating six-line sections that move forward until the end.

Keep your writing sense-bound, and keep your eyes open for metaphor. As usual, set a timer and respond to the following prompts for exactly the time allotted. Use the whole time, whether or not you complete your final section.

Rhyme your ten-minute piece abcabc, and your five-minute piece xxaxxa.

Sight Sound Taste Touch Smell Body Motion

10 minutes: Morning Walk (abcabc)

STAN SWINIARSKI

Sneakers that patter on fresh morning sidewalks

The rhythm starts the day

Smells of wet grass, sprinklers wetting the greens

Peaceful as dreaming, the morning bird’s talks

Lead me on my way

Feeling the sky’s welcoming yawn to me

Ladies pass by with their gossip and iPods

The colors that I see

Bright-colored sweatsuits in their full morning bloom

Men in their khakis being led by their dogs

Greeting every tree

They will be off to their workday very soon

ANDREA STOLPE