We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Choral Soliloquies (I)

by Stephen Mead

/
1.
I Sent a Letter to My Love 04:42
lyrics
buy track
I Sent a Letter to My Love (Thanks to Bernice Rubens) A drop in the bucket it was, water, water Welling. I thought if perhaps we were Suddenly stone-struck, then we'd have Some sort of beauty, noble, immutable To the descent of gray sheets. Marble slabs Chiseled gothic, poignant under a curtain Of trickles: what a presence, perfection, Catharsis of a kind. The features would be Set, no recesses revealed, no sadness, no longing, Only a passion, roman cold, cauterized right into Rock. I needed that, Desired metamorphosis, at least some coral cove For gulls flapping over, their tattered whiteness A mirror-series of flags against the mad seas Distraction, its lament, intractable: The moon rise, the tidal pull----- Stone is never so desperate, & to fathom My real hunger would be to acknowledge Just what you have been. Instead I embrace The statue of my carving, & enter it, fitted To form. In that stasis there is a storm To weather the shelter of, evading Evading the secret each wave delivers As it eats my basalt. Breath after breath, The solitude spreads shadows on far shores, A whole continent of lighthouses, & my Engraved craving falls, littered letters in surf. Drifting, now eyes watch how gulls come, Picking
2.
Joan Floating 03:51
lyrics
buy track
Joan Floating Burners turned herky-jerky, the berserk motion of drunks---- From what basin do these waves accelerate? My arms, sails, winding around masts, take flames leeward then shelter the hush, astonished by what oranges, topaz, bejeweled gusts bleed up blue. How anguish is just relative, indigenous to such dancing that eats, chafes, dazzles sweat’s fever. To where is it blazing? Not liquid bronze, this garment of flesh, a collection of swathes presently darkened in succession ‘til only bones would resemble gold if their char’s ever washed away. So, billowing, I smoke, float, a swooshing of voices now crackling their wireless to root reception in place: There, cloud gauze, adrift, betrothing Juno to her essence: a sea gull’s cry wheeling circles somewhere painless and above
3.
Home Movie 02:29
lyrics
buy track
Home Movie “It’s still raining.” Mom said to the reporter when he asked how it felt to see Dad swept away by the flood of this disaster we’re living making world news, & us caught by the camera our neighbor Billy somehow fetched from the waves to film copters swooping down, the rescue guys on their ropes shouting & snatching at hands while houses collapse & plastic cat dishes sail past as if the very flash of these instants held the windblown motion of rag mags & you hardly had time to get a real close look at the command performance we’re givin’ before our screams bleed into silence, before our tears are your eyes.
4.
Christ, George 04:32
lyrics
buy track
Christ, George Here we are, how many feet up, the right engine Givin’ out & some holy roller in the back Suggesting we sing hymns. Amazing Grace. Nearer My God to Thee. Well, I guess you Can’t blame her. I, myself, would rather belt Bessie Smith or just stick with these Pisco Sours While drawing pictures in the clouds. That might at least prove a distraction. Now come on George, don’t look so scared. Count your blessings. Ha Ha. Know what I mean? I mean, afterall, we are together & were finally Able to see Rome, Picadilly, Brussels. Thank god for your retirement. Thank Allah for scotch. At this point I’d be willing to thank anyone, shave My head, sell flowers, convert to Hari Krishna. Wait a minute. What’s that stewardess say? Bockle. Bockle. That PA needs a new battery. Oh, so this is how the oxygen mask works. Just Press a pillow here between the knees & the chest. Breathe easy. Who’s she kidding? No George, You’re not turnin’ too blue. Sure they should have Parachutes, an ejector button or, beneath seats, maybe Some special flap that could open right up. We’d Float down like insects, taking in the scenes. Perhaps buildings with windows large enough To see lights, faces, every individual expressive As plants. Yes, try that idea, landing on an island, A kind of tropical symphony enveloping us both Like the time we sat in that restaurant, some waiter Playing the violin. My head, heart, is on his bow Now. Funny, a nice switch, not to feel abandoned Or bitter. Certainly the sky has large hands, & so Does the earth, for when it happens. George, until then, Just sit tight. I won’t let go of yours’ either. Promise.
5.
Marilyn's Good Day 03:05
lyrics
buy track
Marilyn’s Good Day It was raining & I forgot Sun glasses, forgot the accessible Face, the detectable susceptibility. It was raining & I let it fall, got lost In the drizzle, for once was not Just something more to eat. Who was that in that window I walked by? I did not stop, didn’t look, never Thought to, all of the usual terrifying Life gone flying to these drops, these Buds----- Sudden magnolias, sleepy, waxen, White furl, scent splash, birch of Small spots, the young, the sleek Tongues dousing down soft, Rising up dark----- The whole night mouth wide & Glistening, night of hosannas or S.O.S, but Quiet light reaching some 24 hr. Dawn, some round the clock calm. It tasted like milk, skimmed down, Nude, the coast of Hollywood, blue-ing.
6.
Salome, Salome 04:15
lyrics
buy track
Salome, Salome Veils, the silky, the arduous Ardor of these scents, such scarves Of perfume, my legs being pistils, & from within, about, comes This blossoming moon flower. It has taken me years, memory Being curtains, the windows I waited in, Nylon shifts sweeping ‘round, a slow Waltz with the motes & I Sheeted, a cocoon to myself, in transparent Husks, as ghost, as statue, wanting all recall Of who sculpted… Innocence was imprisoning business But I learned with my fingers, fingers, the touch Listening, braille as Geiger counter shaping words Of worlds for the unspooling, the rewinding & I, Ariadne, keeping a single thread for each vision To lead me further, lower, deeper, high… Whispers, omniscience, finally the heard & The watched became clear abundance, With my power, sensitivity, a mask Dance-shed sensuous & passion a psychic Who knew what you were… Vigil struck so quickly, John, & hunger, An owl’s talons. My eyes were the breadth Of their feathers shadows turning radiance Into angels x rays----- Bring that head closer, your halo like a platter & a cross with four points, your face, your gaze, The ears, the chin….. Tenderness has ended in no vengeance, my skin Itself, the absolute shroud cradling you dear.
7.
Getting Away 03:45
lyrics
buy track
Getting Away Counting the houses, the lights, the windows... It’s good to keep track, this path demanding focus or, no, I demand that, make my movement the most immediate goal. All else has been left: attachments, possessions, the claustrophobia of a trailer cell hoarding knick knacks of deceit. Perhaps I dramatize. Some days were perfection: the gift of sun on scrubbed floors, coffee before the mail and starting on jobs... Why belittle what my husband began tearing at? Those flaws found were delusional or minor cracks still glued whole, of essence, like veins of glaze in a fine antique bowl. So our skins were bound, something to be held, touched, looked upon with care ‘til the smashing flew its furies in: daily unreasonable bouts of knuckles, stares, words. “We can get help... We should...” Stone would want to listen more, stone, a harbor, willing, yielding, these boulders I could shoulder in for the night in this park . Here are my hands. Here is my scarf, my shawl. I will tie and pull them round. I will get through this night & away from counting houses, counting lights, the face of some god, my husband, in all these closed doors.
8.
Full Bodied 03:46
lyrics
buy track
Full Bodied Come. Consider this flesh: the stretches of birth, its wears of freckles, its firm marks. How grand. How decadent. How I could be large enough for a deity: the breasts of Buddha, and belly of the Villendorf Venus. Call me Circe of the crossroads with a whole West Side Story dipping across the shadows of this, my turf— docks, dance halls & warehouses, the angelic street toughs, the scurrying from swallows, those cops, with a taste of wine & cigs still thick in my mouth. I open it, an accordion. What tunes, what tales swoop through there where such brawls took place & they had to nail the tables down? Now I’m a pantheress, now a true stud, equestrian with Latrec’s Paris, Chagall’s lovers entwined about my baubles, the many rings of my fingers, pearls about the neck. They are gleaming fresh again from the ancient pursuit—— fascination in a gasp, a look, this intimate refuge from the boulevard’s tango, its harbor of uncloaked silks, tossed away caps, unbuttoned zoot suits. What’s in the background? Mirrors, Notre Dame, the hiss of cesspools being washed. I recall only sighs, the passage of francs, being “fallen” but thinking, “Well, it’s a life”, while dreaming I was beyond the songs of Edith Piaf, more of a Mahalia Jackson really, with a voice huge as Africa, and spiritual, spiritual.
9.
Normal Moments 03:12
lyrics
buy track
Normal Moments Pools of quiet, caught up in a stitch of knitting, the pattern of a friend’s face, how the cat loves her belly rubbed, jumps into the funnies before I reach the last strip... My son, as you must know our lives have become comics turned inside out. Not a thing is quite right. There’s hardly a minute which doesn’t remind us of something concerning you: hated broccoli, sock found behind the couch. Perhaps you’ll return to us this way, simply an appearance which changes the cosmos, their topsy turvy scheme, because it’s so remarkably normal. I say this fully aware not much is normal, close to being Blondie & Dagwood, Hi & Lois. We’ve had to involve police, enlist the media, turn to strangers, blow up your school portrait for bread bags, for milk cartons. There’s been no other way, not even the heart’s telepathy pinpointing you in the universe, though it goes on trying. “We have hope,” the posters say & sometimes I fear—— fixing dinner, tying your brother’s shoe, I fear the hope more than the not knowing, wondering which, if either, will be the thing to undo these moments & cut us for all time
10.
Persephone Poisoned 03:00
lyrics
buy track
Persephone Poisoned Cold wind blows from my gaze, My grin a coffin, the hibernate freeze For years of six months apiece Spent in some hell. Sullen, implosive, do you think I don’t know coals upon TNT Stacked beneath this vast chilly stance? Believe me, how I feel just what you Can barely sense about what keeps me remote: You calling me beautiful, you stroking For a hand, marionette-made, To hold, to have… Let go. I’m a long way off from you, You, fuming a possessive plume of pouting Smoke I taste the spring & am going To warm my bones there, going to seed Whole worlds farther off from the venom You bit me with. Child-snake, your fangs are only a teething I coast from, a monarch sprung from My tourniquet womb.
11.
Many a Sorrowing Bee Keeper 04:03
lyrics
buy track
Many a Sorrowing Bee Keeper “Please to see the queen,” she might have sung to these workers in a different time, but now, smoking this hive, see how even the drones have changed. That one still brings the buzz of another, but overall they are less trusting with their numbers becoming scarce. Yellow & black, some beleaguered plight has come to their fuzz, their clear gold dust wings landing to striate the Keeper who’s become precarious too. “What balance is out of hand?” she asks in a whisper as if down on one knee. Is her covering veil that of mourning, a netted babushka & the same fabric on her fingers still deft but forlorn? “Aren’t you messengers for the dead?” God, goddess, look how she questions, puzzled plaintive in plain sight, knowing despair is a hungering & what of the honey? It is rue to each poultice for all wounds never mentioned but apparent to these beings her gestures reflect. How their little legs give, stitching without sting, & she remains seamstress, pouring webbed nectar to every sore. Under indifferent Nature’s heat, she senses many others bursting as blossoms on her kind, the sun not granting pardon for what has been done to all creatures living. Still, forgive me she sings, profusely apologizing like a nurse to the hurt as she goes on smoking this hive, a stalk of many mouths, her palms the Futures’ mandibles now, taking, taking more.
12.
When Did It Start? 02:17
lyrics
buy track
When Did It Start? Later I was seven I think taking a pill or eight. I don't or drink remember except trying not Dad it was to flashback scary, your for the bombardment voice, touch an illiterate's shame it, that's victim's wrath nice lamb chop you would question my deserve this innocence & there the rope then & I would always be pretended my body an interrogation was another kid's as if it while trying was Salem like my Aunt said and I was not to dwell on a witch the word elephant
13.
The Cats of Claudel 03:19
lyrics
buy track
The Cats of Claudel Should I not have cried about the flood? The mud sluiced back the statuettes That I made, one shelf, two... The others were not catastrophic, And among the figures, the faces, Balanced my cats, their whiskers, Silver water, their meows, my pulse... Where are they now, now after The plaster’s been salvaged, And the kiln-set clay, and the marble, Not mammoth, but long as my vision Which once sought such light— Sculpting from that Was a whirling dervish in wreckage, And I should have laughed About the backed up Seine, should Have done as my cats did: Found a spot, curled for sun, The milk of it, the ivory... Still, of all that, I made a show, My triumph, the salon, Though nobody believed, Nobody paid, except strays With a fondness for felines, Their genius of just being— The Seine might take care of this too, And these... the depths... a whoosh... And then crash...white chunks entering Indigo... To de-sculpt is a pick ax at my blood, Not liquid silk, not satiation, but Breaking and dust— I suppose that’s when the cats left, Yet here, in these prisons, a roving Eye, a scraggily head reminds me Of their company, and the silence, The music, in stone I created
14.
Stolen Hearts 06:11
lyrics
buy track
Stolen Hearts Helping you escape was my penance for God’s lie. No, not God’s, but humanity’s: Improper, contemptuous, their guilty scapegoating needs… Why did I believe you that day, reading my bible To you through the bars? Oh, people will say It was loneliness, say I hated my warden husband & fell Sway to your eyes. Not exactly. That’s too pat. What you wanted was one person to see You could kill no one & then there was me. I didn’t understand at first, neither of us did, How a person’s faith may exchange places with another’s Until both are transfigured by the single combined light. No, I did not hate my husband &, if lonely, only In the way many people are: through the silences Of marriage, through the lives lived as expected & not Comprehended until perimeters are fixed & patrolled, patrolled… How I breathed by such a pace, using Christian belief For endurance, & how you told me your lack of it After being dealt another cage. Weeks went by & so what if I was being used? Condemned to desperation, how else can trust be thrust Forth but by measures of equal risk----- A saw, a file… It was I who stole your heart or why else Would you come fetch me? Excess baggage, faith Rearranged & on the run through nights of snow, Trains, an abandoned mule wagon… Oh Canada! Freedom! Tasting flight, open Air & some farms’ chainless dream: We would start over, our arms, pillows, our Arms, kept promises----- Except: How chance betrays hope in the way posses hunt. It didn’t take long… Hooves, bullets, shouts… I whispered in the thick, “Quick shoot me here.” How funny, your lousy mark, I lived While you, to them, were suddenly beef, Riddled on all fours. Goodbye my warden husband. What I’ve exchanged is the faith Of your bars for these strange, these somehow Innocent ones my lover never Belonged to Though once I read him my bible & found then, as I find now another home here
15.
Ninety 07:34
lyrics
buy track
Ninety It’s rather a shocker, to nature & even myself the fact that I’ve survived. Most figured, & I don’t mind saying it, that I’d die young, one of those frail neurotic types for whom, to be borne, the world is too much. The thought could make one nauseous, but all I can do now is laugh & laugh, wondering just who in hell is left for me to celebrate this with. The cats, I suppose, Duchess, Periwinkle, & old slant-eyed Redcoat with his left ear half missing. I’ve nineteen altogether, their life spans a collective karma for the incarnations I’ve gone through, who I was during this decade, that, each, more or less, a bit of a scrap pile... Fingering the tatters, everything floods back, the chain smoked years waking up to stumble over bottles or into arms—— Ricardo’s, Jack’s, those throwing down lifelines while, in actuality, searching for their own, the mattress going, “Dao! Dao!”, ‘til I decided friendships were best. Then, as you know, I fell into leaf-letting, demonstrations, & the lot, even 24 hours in some cold piss-stenched jail. In between there were letters, books, the cinema, wash days, picnics, & every odd job imaginable. I remember feeding Suicide Bernie coffee one long night for hours. I remember C.C’s cancer ravishing flesh the way famine does. “Oh good.” I think Izzy said on the death of McCarthy. “Where’s the mercy?, asked Shirl on whatever occasion, the 3rd world, our own street, she came up against the cruel. But, as I’ve alluded, they’re gone, gone except to me, cradling, crinkling, smoothing such lace mentioned now ‘n then to the curious visitors who trickle in. “What was it like?” or “What should I do?” Questions like that. Once in awhile, as if at a river, I see a bright thread, a flash of this unattainable masterpiece where their reflection is mine, rippling superimposed, first puzzled, then, placid, but, come on, at ninety, once in awhile is still pretty fair odds.
16.
Testaments 04:25
lyrics
buy track
Beyond misery and madness, beyond blitzes, tartars & prayers for death, my life dissolving autobiography infinitely interchangeable along time's constant zeitgeist, the radium of amnesia killing memory until, by surprise, posthumous breaths again stoke the vision, refute evidence of destruction: TB, blacklisting, the beloveds taken away... What is this, this something which twitches like a cat or snow slowly fanning to reveal, in clear moments, Leningrad rooftops? Hands, gazes, embrace chocolate earth, the rich silt massaged and tossed forth toward a sky bursting titanium. Dark flakes hit the whiter, a mixed squall against blue—— Knowledge, experience outlasting all which sought to drive spirits down, & succeeding in part with the encampment of skin... Here survival is not virtuous, but a fact which nearly refrains from rejoicing yet does not does not for the soul is an oath swearing to witness (water) the sting of strife (in the lungs) and still (with whatever voice is left) sing

about

To order CDs via VISA or PayPal please visit stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com

Samples, loops, music as a layering, a pastiche...the sound collages which comprise "Choral Soliloquies" owe a great deal to those who created the samples and loops in the first place. I simply spent a lot of time with them as if given a sonic paint box to play with. Changing speed, pitch, volume, direction, or deciding to leave as is...trying one sample in conjunction with another, and with the poems as songs, trying to find the chord which resonated best with the words and timbre of voice...these aural experiments were also an experience for the spirit. I consider it fortunate to be immersed in these astral cinematic dreamscapes and to live in a time where such technology exists; where collaborations can occur between souls who have never met but are given an internet platform to put their creativity out there, often while remaining anonymous. In many ways that is why I still find the process of such works-in-progress to echo, oddly enough, old school ...the choral and the solitary, the alchemy of coming together for something larger... calling to both.

credits

released May 20, 2017

In addition to sounds/ instruments recorded in and around the house other sound files, before "tweaking", except where noted, are from FreeSound.org, contributors I.D. from site is in bold

I Sent a Letter to My Love with 35730__kerri__haunted-canyon-flute, Schmetterling Kevin Macleod, Incompetech.com
Joan Floating with 39557__jus__cellos-three-chords, 65382__digifishmusic__aceeeent, Comunio.DomineQuinque samples InternetArchive.org
Home Movie with samples of Prelude in G Minor and Agnus Dei, Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com
Christ, George with 74274__pycckuu20032003__angel, 120529__cormi__zufolo4a
Marilyn's Good Day with 65382__digifishmusic__aceeeent, 22544_morse-code-sos_by_slavador, 61521__hjohnl__final-angelic-sound, Marilyn Monroe sample WavSource.com
Salome, Salome with Sunday Church Ambiance-SoundBible.com-974744686, 33838__erh__negative-future-edit-1f
Getting Away with 110387__cormi__night-in-the-forest, Shores of Avalon Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com
Normal Moments with 26040__ashassin__take-musiquette2, 40620__digifishmusic__katy-sings-melisma-2
Persephone Poisoned with 32591__erh__choral, 148812__setuniman__fairytale-0k-20m
Many a Sorrowing Bee Keeper with 101981__cormi__troubadour-01b, 152390__adam-n__paulamicusmeussection
When Did it Start with 250444__fruitcake-hotel__fh7, 65382__digifishmusic__aceeeent
The Cats of Claudel with 39914__ digifishmusic__katy-sings-laaoooaaa
Stolen Hearts with 183876__cormi__bells-b-090, 50087 chipfork__chant01, 111269__cormi__romantico2b
Ninety with Private Reflection Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com
Testaments with "To the Muse" Anna Akhmatova, www.ubu.com/sound/akhmatova.html, 160700__setuniman__melancholic-intro-0q-35mi2, Additional Choral samples with speed, direction, pitch etc, changes from Chrystomos, 111270__cormi__abbellimentoa

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Stephen Mead image

Stephen Mead Albany, New York

A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are at all interested please place his name in any search engine in conjunction with any of the above-mentioned genres for links to his multimedia work and merchandise. To order CDs via VISA or PayPal please visit stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com ... more

contact / help

Contact Stephen Mead

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account

If you like Stephen Mead, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Beans joins the show to discuss his album release, "ZWAARD".

listen now