CARLY Z | SONGWRITER | MUSICIAN

Absolution

1/4/2019

 
If you need to find the music again
Pole out to the Okavango Delta
Find Raps
Navigating the veins of Earth
Like he knows something about the heart

Cover your feet in thorns
And dirt
And kill
And then wash them in a basin
Ripped from the bleeding, reaching fingers of the Zambezi

Take life give life

Let Setswana drip
From the sharp edges of your crown
Nail your feet to the river
Tie your hands with reeds
So you can no longer look for what wants
To come upon you by surprise


​

After a time

The Unknown Singers of the Okavango Delta
The aural apparitions of the almost dead
Come like water
Or blood
Or both

Take music give life

It is finished.
0 Comments

Bayou Sonnet

1/25/2017

 
I‌ ‌stroll‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌edge‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌water‌ ‌and‌ ‌search‌ ‌
For‌ ‌bodies‌ ‌of‌ ‌lovers‌ ‌and‌ ‌wisdom‌ ‌and‌ ‌time‌ ‌
The‌ ‌waves‌ ‌are‌ ‌the‌ ‌pews‌ ‌and‌ ‌the‌ ‌bayou,‌ ‌my‌ ‌church‌ ‌
Opacity‌ ‌such‌ ‌that‌ ‌it‌ ‌must‌ ‌be‌ ‌divine‌ ‌
 ‌ ‌
I‌ ‌dare‌ ‌not‌ ‌approach‌ ‌and‌ ‌disturb‌ ‌its‌ ‌old‌ ‌hymn‌ ‌
Its‌ ‌shoreline‌ ‌the‌ ‌bound’ry‌ ‌of‌ ‌life‌ ‌and‌ ‌demise‌ ‌
For‌ ‌God‌ ‌knows‌ ‌the‌ ‌trouble‌ ‌I’ve‌ ‌seen‌ ‌and‌ ‌the‌ ‌sin‌ ‌
And‌ ‌on‌ ‌every‌ ‌altar‌ ‌a‌ ‌sacrifice‌ ‌lies‌ ‌
 ‌ ‌
Instead‌ ‌I‌ ‌just‌ ‌walk‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌cast‌ ‌out‌ ‌my‌ ‌gaze‌ ‌
For‌ ‌something‌ ‌as‌ ‌ancient‌ ‌as‌ ‌feeling‌ ‌and‌ ‌fire‌ ‌
And‌ ‌think‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌heaven-like‌ ‌hell‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌waves‌ ‌
Of‌ ‌beauty‌ ‌and‌ ‌sorrow‌ ‌and‌ ‌pain‌ ‌and‌ ‌desire‌ ‌
 ‌ ‌
And‌ ‌out‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌distance‌ ‌walk‌ ‌all‌ ‌of‌ ‌God’s‌ ‌sheep‌ ‌
With‌ ‌bodies‌ ‌as‌ ‌faceless‌ ‌as‌ ‌those‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌deep‌
0 Comments

Jeff and the Mississippi

1/9/2017

 
Most people think
that rivers
are only water
 
But most people
don’t know
what you knew
 
That a river
is a virile body
just like yours
 
With just as many secrets
 
To learn that
they would have to
do what you did
 
They would have to
have been there
on that night
 
To sink into
your mud-filled boots
black and caked
 
To allow
your fish-fed t-shirt
to spill over their chests
 
To lie back
into the endlessness
like lured lovers
 
And to sing like you
 
An air that
nature remembers
and vows to reclaim
 
Pouring itself
down their throats
in a show of jurisdiction
 
Most people
don’t know
nature’s price for wisdom
0 Comments

The Maltese Englishman

12/29/2016

 
My Englishman looks out onto the Maltese sea
And I see him breathe

His high shoulders calm under starched jacket
Dripping with shiny, foreign things

With meanings you could stretch like hot sugar
Until you’re sure he could have been something

His brow an ageless, sun-soaked groove
His lips still and set with practiced assurance

The guns go off

I squint to see where the metal goes
With no splash to condone an existence

No evidence but the lazy smoke
Circling like vapid possibilities around his head

And although my Englishman could look up for me
His heart is in the sparkling sea

I lean over and make mirrors of my eyes
Watching for what hope he has out there

I turn and wait
He only breathes
0 Comments

Grand Traverse Bay

12/5/2016

 
When in my mind
I row out to Grand Traverse Bay

​At setting sun

​I lie back

And look up at stars
At the end of their journeys

Allowing my legs to hang gently
Over the edge
And skim the surface

Of the stars’ reflection
Disturbing their form
But not their brightness

The book in my hand
Has nothing on this night sky
Of a billion stories

Ones far more daring
Than any I have known
As if I could even imagine

As I listen and pretend
I know its telling
The boat drifting softly with me
0 Comments

Pontchartrain

12/2/2016

 
To witness the fluid breadth
Where the darkness shifts to meet it

Is to remember a time
When I was floating upon it

Unmoored

Like a pale petal in a desert
At the mercy of winded sands

Or a footprint in a jungle
To which there are no visitors

A speck of blind consciousness
In a wise, unblinking blue

As willing to rest in its vacant gaze
As to sink forever into its consequence
0 Comments

In New Orleans

12/1/2016

 
In New Orleans
The wind blows underground

Salty and sultry and laughing

Effortlessly weaving himself
Around cracked pipes and swollen peat

Kissing the swamp water
And telling her bedtime stories

Dancing madly under our feet
Swirling under bursting sidewalks

Thundering through his sunken kingdom
Like drunken Rex on his cold courir

That’s how come you can feel it

His release is found in endless fissures
Torn in his blind ardor

Through streets and concretes and floorboards
And single blades of moon-yellow grass

Through layers of rotten pavements 
And beds of rivers and doomed flowers

Tangling himself in giant oaks
Up through trunks and into branches

His wildness protecting his urgent secret

And we who have never seen him
Know exactly what it is
0 Comments

Swampstillness

11/23/2016

 
The trees of the swamp
Their slim sticks like shepherds' staves
Or circus stilts abandoned in a fever

The still, vertical swimmers
With strokes as stiff and aimless
As the lazy air around them

Who, when the heron alights to rest
Recline into its weight
Like lovers with their sleeping brides

The sticky sunlight saps its mortal servants
Surrounding them like a queen
Envious of their simple existence

And the stillness -

The stillness.

The kind that is centuries settled
With no plans for the rest of Earth’s eternity

As if sleep is not a succumbing
But a state as knowing as wakefulness

As if the awakened ones could understand
That beauty and survival are the same

And that these sublime swamps sleep
In the palm of their fumbling hands
0 Comments

    About

    Words are the backbone of my music. They often reference powerful ideas that strike me in my readings or develop from my life experiences. The creative expression of these ideas sometimes begs for musical form, and other times it comes out on the page. Here is a selection of my lyrics, poems, essays and other writings.

    Archives

    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2019
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    Categories

    All
    Companion Stories
    Lyrics
    Poems

    RSS Feed

  
Privacy Statement
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • MUSIC
  • MEDIA
  • WRITINGS
  • LIVE
  • CONTACT
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • MUSIC
  • MEDIA
  • WRITINGS
  • LIVE
  • CONTACT