Feature: T.M. Göttl Day 5

Today,

in a fit of desperate, doily-embellished passion, all chrysanthemums and body-strewn streets, I hammered out sixhundredwords to the worship of the muse, the dedication of the monk and nun, sixhundredwords that only I could offer up, the only words I had to offer up, to a grey and disinterested deity, such inkandpaper lips and tongues that would never chance the grace of a pontiff’s eyes, the bishop’s mitre, the scholar’s hood, such lies and stolen requiems to only ever curl in the corners, shamed into shedding their colored plumage and their ornamented claws, trading a quasi-reliquaried existence, their own familiarity, in exchange for the long-fingered extraction of fear as it climbs into beds, between covers, absorbed into the threads before sailors’ wives even bleached them into linen sheets, the sapling fluff and seed that laughs in the loop of every technological firing, each extermination closer, one toe-length beyond a thirsting howl, pulling year after year from ages, ticking slowly upwards in the evaporation of the emperor-owned water clocks, younger hands and younger clothing, rolling, rolling, rolling down the satin hills and clover, the chalk-lined walls, the mason jar serving to germinate stray grains of sunlight, the stalks budding white-hot coral-colored husks, peeling, sloughing off hardened excuses, revealing, at last, the cooling, breathing honesty.


© T.M. Göttl

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Q&A

Q: You’ve also written lyrics for music. Is that similar or different from writing straight poetry for you? And where can we find your work?

A: Terrifying! I adamantly do.not.rhyme, so the first time a friend asked if I’d put some words to his music, I balked. It ended up being a fun project, because I figured there were no expectations on me—although it took probably six months before my thoughts came together and I came up with something adequate. That first lyric-writing venture was “Funky Chiropractor,” in collaboration with Zach. It was more of a joke really, which worked out for me, because just about anything I rhyme tends to fall in the not-so-serious category.

A more challenging bit came this past year when another local musician and friend, David Ullman, asked if I’d like to collaborate with him and write some lyrics. David has a very different style than Zach, and I knew the ridiculous would be out on this one. But David and I are both very happy with the results and what each of us has brought to the piece to make it something very special—a song called “Everyone is Somebody Else”.

Thus far, neither piece has been recorded (except for various live versions of Chiropractor that are out there on YouTube and my MySpace page). We’ll see what happens. Now and again, I’ve written something that’s song-like and sent it off to a songwriter-friend to see what becomes of it. No other finished results yet. But again, we’ll see what becomes of it all ?