Free Songwriting Without Boundaries by Pat Pattison

hand, to ask it to waltz.
90 seconds: The lonely moonlight listens to the waves, as it pierces the ocean like a needle on vinyl. It plays like a muted trumpet. Boats are a recipe of dust …
    You’ll be seeing a lot of Susan. She’s pretty good at this. She took words that belong to lonely , like forsaken and, instead of people forsaking each other, “Daylight hurried away, leaving lonely moonlight ….” Personification. Simple. And effective.
    And Ben has the moonlight at a school dance …
    Susan’s object writing reeks of isolation. She probably got to the house from the oak tree in her sentence. And Ben’s picture of moonlight listening is exciting, and then to move from listening to music? Nice.
    Your object writing should use lonely moonlight as its prompt, but note how far afield you can go. Anywhere is possible. You just get there through lonely moonlight’s gate. Go ahead. Give it a shot.
    Blackened Funeral
CHANELLE DAVIS: It was a blackened funeral, with hundreds of umbrellas sheltering the people from a typical wet November afternoon as they listened to a prayer being read over the loud speaker …
Long black woolen coats buttoned high and scarves, purple wrapped tight around necks, ushers and rows and rows of blackened people, running mascara down porcelain cheeks, red scarlet lips splash colour like a flick of paint from a brush …
SUSAN CATTANEO: Hot August sun broils the asphalt, and the limousines line up grill to bumper, charcoal briquettes at a blackened funeral.
The widow bends over the open grave and drops a white rose into the darkened mouth of earth. Mourners holding tissues close, keen quietly as the dark casket’s holy …
    You’ll be seeing a lot more of Chanelle, too. Note how both she and Susan litter their writing with black—umbrellas, coats, mascara, asphault, charcoal briquettes, and “the darkened mouth of earth.”
    Now, you try.
    Fallen Carburetor
GREG BECKER: After 43 years of smoking his Marlboro Reds, he grabs his chest in his final moments as his fallen carburetor coughs and chokes out its final breath.
Deep within his chest the echoes of laughter and a strong young voice bounce off the metallic tar-stained fallen carburetor that once was a pink lung—the carburetor that, in his younger days could take a breath large enough to throw a touchdown pass or blow out the candles on a cake, now just sat rusted within him.
SUSAN CATTANEO: The preacher’s old station wagon preached a sermon of exhaust as it rumbled downtown, its fallen carburetor backfiring rhetoric.
Bibles rise precariously like stairs in the passenger seat, the radio tuned to Sunday’s sermon blasts hymn through scratchy speakers, tight white suspenders and a starched white shirt, wedding ring suffocating the puffy left ring finger …
    Pretty interesting: Greg sees a lung as a carburetor, coughing and choking—verbs that work with either lungs or carburetors. And Susan turns the preacher into a car “backfiring rhetoric.”
    Your turn.
    Smooth Autumn
ANNE HALVORSEN: School bells announce the autumn smooth with old comforts.
Scent of newly sharp pencils, pristine erasers, top zip cases fitting neatly on notebook rings, snaps of binders pinching fingers as they close over endless white circles licked and placed, reinforcing holes already ripped …
CHANELLE DAVIS: This was a smooth autumn, yellow leaves slick and dripping with fresh rain, sticking to my boots. The river was swollen and I watched the ducks gliding in pairs, every now and again a quack breaking the misty silence.
Layers of leaves, sweet rotting smell, squirrels running with wet feet, licking wet fur, cloudy sky, hidden sun, warm hands around a takeaway Starbucks cup, standing in the park rain falling from trees, on my forehead, still air, shiny concrete, washed away chalk hopscotch game, empty playground…
    Hot spots: “School bells announce…”; “yellow leaves slick and dripping with fresh rain.”
    Now, your turn.
    Fevered Handkerchief
GREG