December 6, 2007
Shiny Kiss
…listen
…about the musicAs the title implies.
Passion searches
hungry
for its partner
through air that moves
and breathes
into your ear
warm
slowly first
then quicker gasps
it finds you
reflecting light
and sound
with lips pressed
firm
against cool metal
It sings to you
it moans
caressing
eager to seduce
all that lives between the air
and you
barely touching
grazing
neck hair
shiver
accept
this shiny kiss.
I am easily goaded, and a New Faithful Kelpisto, writer Glenn Buttkus, asked for some of my poetry to round out the musings, music, and images here at Algae Central. I have no other poem to offer but this one; my sole foray toward concise expression. Those who know me will tell you I am many things and concise is not one of them.
The photo was snapped on Thanksgiving Day. Appropriate, I think.
A few years ago I was asked to send a flutist a solo piece that had been composed to prose. I thought this was a slightly odd request. I mean, how many composers have that kind of thing at the ready, just laying around their studio? But what I lacked in words I did have in music. Who better to remedy this imbalance than the composer herself, especially when the piece is titled Shiny Kiss and the program notes state, “The title refers to stage lights bouncing and reflecting off of a metal flute, and the sensuous way a flutist’s mouth embraces the embouchure. This simple hollow tube is the vehicle for such passionate expression, and just watching expert lips coaxing music from it can be a nearly voyeuristic experience.”
Well, I’m not concise, but at least I’m not… dull.
Glenn Buttkus said,
December 6, 2007 @ 7:27 am
Thank you dear lady, for those words from your heart, stirred up from your fertile nest of creativity. If music is sex, as you so clearly have stated and restated and are living proof of, and it can be passionate, then so are words; for me a well turned phrase, a piece of clever intelligent writing, dialogue in a film, prose from a novel, someone else’s poetry, my poems, a sentence here and there in reviews, narratives, blog sites –it all catches my eye, and certainly has been known to key my emotions.
Your snippet of music was like a kiss in the morning, a light touch of those lips that had delivered so much the night before, those lips that curve upward into glee, into a smile, or pout, or let their corners droop with exhaustion, with sadness as they watch the war, or look too long at the sea gull lying dead on the beach; those same lips that wrap around bright colored fruit chunks and pasta and red-dripping steak, or that form an “O” and emit a whistle, a twill, a birdsong as the sun peeks up from its slumber, blasting through the bare branches of fall’s forest, that curl back slowly revealing a mouth full of pearl white teeth, and the delightful pinkness of that thrusting tongue that caresses your palate and coaxes out conversation, dialogue, song, bleats, yippies, howls, and peals of delcious laughter–as you describe other lips pressed to instruments, french kissing reeds, and setting the pace for a set of fingers to keep up on the keys, while le jazz hot sambas and saunters into the smoky cabaret, into that concert hall, into your kitchen, and into the history of your endeavor, a new sound that will become an old sound, often worthy of repeating, and mingling anew with others, serenading those ears that need to hear it, that are starved for it, for whom music is the literal breath of life.
I loved your poem so much I pasted it on the NEW Palmer/Buttkus website, FEEL FREE TO READ, bibliosity.blogspot.com, for yes, old Dougie has taken your suggestion and has expanded his blogiverse to include the science and wonder of words and language. Three cheers for him, and now another blog enters into the tangled web of cyber worlds, more than likely oblivious to it, or not. Time will tell. After all you found FEEL FREE TO LAUGH, and your participation led to the reciprocity and delight that now ensues.
Glenn
Alex Shapiro said,
December 8, 2007 @ 10:57 am
YOU are the fine write, Glenn! I just love the middle paragraph above.
Many thanks for your generous words! You give me great encouragement and it means a lot.
We could start a whole franchise of “Feel Free To…” Just think of the possibilities… I am happy to have some of my pixels present on the new venture and who knows….. maybe there will be more over time…. Doug Palmer leads well by example, huh?
Doug Palmer said,
December 9, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
Glenn is doing my liner notes, if i ever have any.
That alone will sell the thing, if there ever is one.
Glenn Buttkus said,
December 9, 2007 @ 4:35 pm
Alex:
You are the gracious and generous one, and I certainly do appreciate that. I guess NOTES FROM THE KELP is the only CD that you have put out there that is 100% Alex Shapiro. Your work and collabortations seemed to number in the dozens, on other people’s CD’s. Doug has muttered that he will “review” NOTES. That will be great. I am actually going to stick my neck out as well and get my own copy of it, and give it the hard and long listen as well.
Doug was concerned, as were we all, we Kelpistos, as to how you fared in that NW version of a hurricane that we just endured. Aberdeen had winds of over 100mph; knocked the hell out of Gray’s Harbor County.
I would be honored to write the liner notes for your CD release, Doug. You produce the product, and I will illuminate and proliferate it. How kind you are, old buddy, to even suggest such a thing. By the way, Alex, the Palmer/Buttkus blog site, FEEL FREE TO READ, as per yesterday has 125 postings to peruse. Most of it is pretty good stuff that I have had stashed for years here and there on the hard drive.
Glenn
Barry said,
December 25, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
Dear Alex,
I wish you a very merry Christmas! I hope you are enjoying your new island paradise. May your new year be prosperous and filled with all that you love.
Pax,
Barry