Author Archives: Wendy

Songs vs. Poems

Posted on by
Reply
For me the difference between a song and a poem is simple: a song comes with a melody, a poem doesn’t.  I’ve never written a poem and then set it to music.  I’ve started to put some of my songs here, without the tunes, which is a little like posting blind, as I always hear the music when I write or think them, and don’t know what they sound like without music.
The tunes haven’t gone far beyond my own head.  My brother Geoff took to singing one of my songs, so it has a music life.  My other songs remain trapped, due to my aborted music training, my lack of drive to pursue it, and my lack of courage to perform.  Plus if they were going to be performed, they’d probably have to be altered to fit the format of popular songs.
Sometimes songs don’t come whole, as did Vineyard Haven Kite Song.  Sometimes a first line, with its melody, calls for another.  In those cases I have enjoyed playing with the words, the rhymes.  In the following song, I enjoyed making not just end rhymes but internal rhymes, with some lines nearly completely rhyming with each other.  
That mid-college period of my life was a prolific time for songs – I don’t know why.  I shared some of them again with my brother Geoff recently, and he said they were probably not songs he would sing, as they bore that unmistakable stamp of college age sensitivities.  He may be right.  What do you think?
In the gentle wind a leaf flutters
And my stirring heart utters echoes
Murmurings of fear are forgotten
As the joyful rhythm beckons
Come, let us dance, oh let us sing, let us be merry
Some are set on chance but we on things less arbitrary
I could shout and still keep a secret
It would speak to him that would hear it
This I send my song out to seek for
Someone who has sung with its spirit
Let it be known – the word is clear, it has been spoken
What is coming must appear – its truth cannot be broken.




©Wendy Mulhern
Fall 1978


Valentine’s Day

Posted on by
Reply
On Monday I saw my mom off at the airport and took the train back into town.  I had two hours before my usual commitment, so I sat in a coffee shop at Westlake Center, and later up in the empty food court.  I had brought my usual early morning activities – prayer and devotional reading.  The overlapping of unaccustomed views with my work brought new colors and insights.  
Today I felt weary of iambic pentameter, so I allowed the images and thoughts to take their own form:
Valentine’s Day 2011
Rain speckled windows
Rain heckled walkers
Valentined workers
Magic smile’s warmth
Hot foamy latte
Baristas laughing
Businessmen talking
Measuring worth
Flash glimpse of something
Glancing up pensive
Fusions of insight
Inklings of truth
Something to hold on
Take when I go on
Pondering, breathing
Walking through rain
Later reflection
Precious connection
Light glimmers lifting me
Homeward again.


©Wendy Mulhern
February 16, 2011

Political Interlude

Posted on by
Reply
I remember being in high school and thinking that Anwar Sadat was a good man.  A man who was making peace in the world’s implacable places.  I remember thinking the same thing about Henry Kissinger.

I later heard that maybe Henry Kissinger didn’t have the good of the people in his sights in the way I had believed.  I heard that Hosni Mubarak, though harder for us to deal with, might better represent the will of the people than Anwar Sadat had.  I’ve come to think it’s very hard to know what’s true about what’s going on in the world.

The people in Egypt seem to be exhilarated by their successful uprising.  It’s hard to know how it all will come out.  When Gorbachev dismantled the Soviet Union, I thought it would be a good opportunity for democracy to take hold.  But instead of offering support in the building of democracy’s infrastructure, we offered hyperselfish capitalism – the worst possible influence of the west.  The rhetoric at the time was that we were being ambassadors for western freedoms.  What we sold, in a new package, was the same old freedom to exploit.  At least, that’s what it looked like to me.  What do I know?

The best I can do is hope that the time is really right for the freedoms the Egyptian people are tasting, and that we don’t somehow go barging in there to mess things up.
In Egypt they rejoice to see a change
Though what will come of it is far from clear
What power moves to fill the vacuum may
Be those who subjugated folks before
And yet the people say the fear has lifted
That now, no matter what, they know they’re free
They feel their noble hearts will work a shift
Towards openness and greater equity
Perhaps it’s in their power to redeem us
Wake us from our jaded cynicism
The waning comfort of complacent lives
Make us stand with them, now that they have risen
Truth over comfort could yet make its claim
We could learn courage once again from them.

     
    
©Wendy Mulhern
 February 12, 2011





The Concluding Chapter

Posted on by
Reply
On Saturday I finished a sonnet about Egypt, and I thought I might interrupt my tale of young adulthood on Martha’s Vineyard with a political interlude.  But it’s Valentine’s Day, and this song, in its way, is about love.  So I will continue as planned.
In the end of that summer the tensions were resolved for me.  I managed to step clear of the judgement that I was doing a bad job, managed to find joy in the good I did and a vicarious enjoyment of my brother’s budding friendships.  This final song brought me great comfort.
Many years later a mentor was helping me find my life direction.  He asked me to talk about times I remembered with a sense of accomplishment. One of the highly salient ones was the writing of this song, in three chapters.  He observed that this proved I was an artist – that of all the challenges that I may have overcome that summer, what I mentioned was this song.  It took me another twenty years to figure out that I’m a writer, and that I can’t just divert that calling to do something else that seems plausible.
The song is still clear in my mind.  It still pleases me to sing it.  I showed it to my brother once, and he was unimpressed.  When I shyly sang it to him, he said ah, I see how it works.  So I guess this one does better with the melody than without it.  I wish I could sing it to you.
Vineyard Haven Kite Song, Chapter Three
End of summer
Goldenrod afterglow
Now from somewhere
Things that you know come in clear again –
That life is love and laughter
In the end the things you’re after find you
All the dreams will reach their dreamers
You will too.
End of summer –
Knowing you have to go
End of summer
Thinking of times that you want to hold
But a golden haze enwraps them
And the summer days
Fuse into one,
A song, a ripple on the water
Waves and storms, and smiles for keeping warm
Tans will never last forever
Plans will change and who’ll remember?
-Someone will.


©Wendy Mulhern
August, 1978

Songs and Longing

Posted on by
Reply
Vineyard Haven Kite Song turned out to have three chapters.  I know it’s odd to refer to songs in terms of chapters, but I felt impelled to call them so at the time.  Each one came to me with melody and words together, and each one illustrated something of my passage through that difficult, though at times beautiful, summer.  
When composing it (if that can be the word for letting it come into my mind) I didn’t really notice the longing in it.  That was something my brother later pointed out.
Vineyard Haven Kite Song, Chapter Two
Afternoon off and I’m drifting on down
Wandering with the wind into the town
Stepping along, looking around
A little bit lost and a little bit free
Knowing there’s something here waiting to find me
I’m seeking, seeking something worth keeping
Not even speaking but silently hoping
Hoping, hoping too hard for coping
Choking on chances but with my eyes open
Open to see something strong and flamboyant
Something that’s vibrant, gentle and sweet.
Leaving, sighing – nothing worth buying
Still keep on wandering, trying to find it –
Something or someone to kindle my soul
That I might fly again
That we may know
That we together have somewhere to go, too
Someone and me
To set ourselves free
That we might reach the sky over the sea.


©Wendy Mulhern
August, 1978

Truth Conditions

Posted on by
Reply
I remember the phrase truth conditions from my study of linguistics at Penn, where we talked about how an utterance was true if all its truth conditions were met, both the asserted and the presupposed.  The truth conditions of “The king of France is bald” are  a) there is a king of France; and b) he is bald.  We talked about how negating the sentence doesn’t touch the presupposed truth condition: “The king of France is not bald” still implies that there is a king of France.
I found myself thinking of truth conditions in another context with regard to writing.  In order for a line to go into a poem, it must be true, and it must be what I want to say.  Those are its truth conditions.  Rhymes will eagerly suggest themselves even when they have nothing to do with truth.  It is my job to reject them, even in the most mundane of verses.  Last night I could truthfully write a line about leaving the dishwasher to its burbles.  But I couldn’t, even in a verse far from worthy of posting, write that I would go to bed and dream of gerbils.  Sorry.  Wasn’t going to happen. Didn’t meet truth conditions.
On the other hand, sometimes a song will come to me almost whole, mostly, as it seems to me, following the leadings of rhyme and meter, and afterwards suggest something to me that, though I hadn’t known I was thinking about it, seems to me in some sense true.  The summer after I took a year off of college, I returned to a job that was idyllic in many respects.  But some crucial supports were missing, so there were unexpected tensions.  One day I hitchhiked most of the way to work and walked the remaining several blocks, through the small town of Vineyard Haven.  I saw a kite in a store window, and by the time I got to work a song had formed in my mind, which I hastily wrote down.  The tune was cheerful; the song entertained me.  It was only later that I considered what truth conditions may have been met:
Vineyard Haven Kite Song, Chapter One
Icarus with burning wings
Spoke to the flying clouds as he fell:
How can you
Not doing
Anything
Catch the resplendent sun so well?
The water that caught him was sparkling blue
Like the sun and the sky that he thought he knew
But the sea was still and the sun was silent
Nothing to tell of a fall so violent
Save a few feathers and, up above,
A father that mourned for the son he loved.
Daedalus, Daedalus, tell us please
What is the lesson you’d teach from this?
Is there a hope for arms such as these
To find the sky and the sun’s great bliss?


©Wendy Mulhern
August, 1978

Learning to run

Posted on by
2
It had long been a wish of mine to be able to run.  Wishes are different from aspirations, sometimes even antithetical to them.  I wished I could run fast as one of the wishes I might ask if a fairy granted me some (not among the first three, but if I took my sister’s suggestion that my first wish would be all the wishes I wanted for the rest of my life, then I’d wish for fast running among one of those wishes.)  As it was I was agonizingly slow as a child, last picked for sports teams.  I would always get a stitch when I tried to run, a pain that proved too hard for me to power through to any kind of competence.
Later analysis might point out (as my husband did) that my attempt to run was inefficient – that there was far too much verticality going on (what he said was my center of gravity was too high).  What I realized was that I was really trying to fly, trying to leap up with every step.  Which, as it turned out, worked against forward motion.
As an adult I’ve tried a few times to learn to run – a few days of searing, painful treks up to the school on the corner, once around the track and back; later inspiration from a book called Born to Run, which had us running barefoot around the track at Kellogg Middle School, until they closed it down to replace the track with a rougher surface, unfriendly to bare feet.  My most recent endeavor involves running on the treadmill at the Y.  Normally I have eschewed working out at a gym when actual outdoor exercise could do the same thing; my bicycle riding has always been as much for the air and the scenery as for the workout.  But in the winter, when cold air can be a challenge if I’m struggling anyway, I’m finding the tutelage of the treadmill salutary.  And it became the subject for my sonnet today:
Back from running treadmill at the Y
I’m salty, mellow, tired but elated
Five miles today, or almost, and I find
Enthusiasm high, not dissipated.
At night, in resolutions in my bed
I think of marathons, triathlons 
Imagine running miles along the road
A settled gait that takes me on and on
Come spring, when air outside is balmy, sweet
I hope to take off confidently striding
Just me, the road, the sneakers on my feet
Past sprouting blooms, suburban landscapes gliding
For now I’m flush with incremental gains
As treadmill numbers, climbing slow, make plain.
Having finished that, I had a little more to say on the subject, so I decided to try another verse, one whose rhythm might lend itself more to running:
The wave of my gait rolls up and across
Right to left, left to right, as I stride
One movement, connected, steady and strong
Makes me feel I could do this awhile
The treadmill, my training wheels, teaching me rhythm
Makes my steps even and steady
While the green blinking numbers encourage my continuing
Show what I’ve managed already
The music that privately plays in my ears
Makes me smile and augments my endurance
Gives enough difference that each step’s not tedious
Gives me the hint of a dance
I could get used to this – 
That is my hope
That I’ll learn to want more and more
So I’ll run in great freedom and reap from it joy
And it won’t even feel like a chore.


©Wendy Mulhern
Feb 6, 2011
What makes something poetry instead of mere verse?  I feel it has to transcend mundane views, invoke a deeper world.  These don’t.  But it was knowing there would be some like these that made me include “verse” in the subtitle of my blog.  

Weather Report

Posted on by
2
(Just to share something)
February cold, implacable
Seeps through around the windows and the doors
Sun’s gleam like steel, a dull and frigid glow
Resounds in hollow tremors through my bones
But sunrise, dawning pink, proffered a peace
And later sunshine, almost generous
Sent temperature to forty-five degrees
Gave reassurance to intrepid bulbs
Yes, light returns, it spreads over the hollows
Where puddles lay before, and sometimes ice
Too thin for spring, but soon that too will follow
The buds will bulge, new life’s quick heat will rise
For now, soft clouds will swaddle up the night
To ease our gentle turning towards the light.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 2, 2011

Daily Discipline

Posted on by
2
A lot of my daily sonnets are pretty bad.  But they hone my craft at verse; they hone my ear.  This evening I said to my husband: “I turned your oatmeal off, I think it’s done,” and noticed the iambic pentameter.  Or, to take it further (as I was compelled):
“I turned your oatmeal off, I think it’s done,”
I said, and noticed five feet of iambic
I went to give a prodding to my son
Who lay, near comatose, under a blanket
The evening ticks towards its predicted end
The deep and wondrous thoughts I hoped to capture
Keep flitting off beyond my reach again
Leaving me rhymeless, stuck, devoid of rapture
At last the sticky veil of sleep is drawn
I’ll seek more brightness when the night is gone.
(Not a full sonnet, that, but I had already written a full one – even worse – so I was OK with leaving it partial.)
There are other benefits to the practice.  The search for what to write, pen poised on blank journal page, dated on top and thus requiring that something be written, sends me scanning for feelings, thoughts, whatever stands out.  So the sonnets become a chronicle of my days and thoughts, sometimes mundane, sometimes something more.  I find I need to write about what’s up now, though there is some temporal flexibility. Now can be this moment as I type, or it can be anything in my memory where the thought or feeling was strong enough to leave a spike, such that I can go back and relive it.  
I prefer reliving the high points, recapturing the lofty thoughts.  But yesterday there was a low point, actually left over from Sunday, and I found that I had to address it, to clear the landscape, in order for other things to be able to emerge.  It wasn’t a deep low; I had pretty much pushed it aside, but the fact that I needed to put it in a sonnet proved that I needed to address it in my thought, put it to bed, to re-establish my accustomed tranquility.
I left the potluck quickly and alone
I didn’t want to stay and try to chat
I felt let down by church and on my own
No one to cherish me or what I said
I was a bit embarrassed by my speech
I didn’t do as well as I have done
Didn’t practice, read it, stumbled, lurched
Didn’t tap the knowing of the One.
Not awful, but I didn’t make connection
Failed to convey the spirit I had felt
Spent too much time on other’s loose suggestions
Too little on the light the Spirit dealt
Or maybe it just wasn’t the right thing
Square peg, round hole, a message without zing.

©Wendy Mulhern

Two sonnets for the goddess

Posted on by
1
I.
The goddess moved in me, I welcomed her
Let her cool fire lick outward toward my skin
Let my soft heat respond, suffuse the air
As joy rose swiftly upward from within
Why not? Though stern gatekeepers would prevent us
From spreading love so free, unearned, untallied
Would say such feeling, absent set conditions
Was better to be cast aside than valued
For there’s no harm if all is in her service
If every touch, however meant, will bless
Affirm divinity aroused within us
Light up our day with heightened consciousness
Each time the goddess offers to possess me
I’ll respond with a resounding yes.
II.
Much later, in the courtroom of my mind
Considering the thoughts that I had voiced
I noticed, pleased and curious to find
No stance of opposition to my choice.
In younger days I might have thought it wrong
To know the goddess, let her play a part
Along with God, in crafting my life’s song
Elucidate the function of my heart
But now my sense of what is true is clear
God can be All, and I still have the goddess
Just as I still have sunshine, mountains, stars
All good a part of Truth, resplendent Oneness
My goddess flight is granted quiet landing
So, step by step, unfolds my understanding.


©Wendy Mulhern
January 30, 2011