Special's blog

Before the concert on Saturday, a few of us YWPers were given the unique opportunity to interview two of the ECCO musicians. This is my reflection of our conversation with Nayoung, a cellist who performed at elley-long.

Written for the Piano Trio. 

Introducing an instrument
is unlike anything else,
the sounds must blend,
melt. Join. And 
from here I can see 
Soovin's fingers moving
to the vibrato and 
his arm pulling. pulsing 
notes from the wooden
violin tucked beneath
his chin.
 
Ignat's hands pass
over the ivory keys,
not like percussionist, but
like a father carressing
ailments from a
childgame bruised form. 
The notes he reads
are not words, but 
cues- art painted and
patterned, music inked. 
Music his fingers
are paused to spin. 

Carr's arms are
strong and they are

Written for the Gioachino Rossini String Sonata No.1 in G major.

colours of 
spring
like the teething sun;
the green of
grass clearing months
of ice & mud. 
colours of spring 
are painted 
on our ears 
one artist, but
four hands, each
with a different plan
to show us something
of beauty. 

opening flowers
with finger kisses;
freeing brooks,
handing us new hues 
for our hearts. 
if only we knew 
brushes
that could claim such art.     

Written for the Gioachino Rossini String Sonata No.1 in G major.

If you were to play
this beauty on my neck, I 
would surely sing Spring. 

Written for the Gioachino Rossini String Sonata No.1 in G major.

She would lift her bow
& pull music from the air

he would pluck it from the
strings & they 

would harmony. Breathe
melody, tears rolling

from their fingertips &
landing like 

ritard-
andos in scores on the floor.  

For the Antonín Dvorák Nocturne in B major; performed on August 25 by the ECCO. 

The violin sings, &
the cello hums, unable 
to resist. The bass chuckles 
and snaps his tongue 
in his mouth. 
When the violin begins 
to dance, the cello stretches
out a hand and swings
her in larghetto arches
as her sister catches the 
tune and trills. Harmonizing
with the viola who
has arrived with a pipe
& a beat in his throat. 
The bass is unimpressed,
leans against the cellos
chest, gives him a 
'take it away' sort of
glance. The violin picks
up her step, rises to

As a response to David Ludwig's composition, performed on Wednesday, Aug 25 & titled, 'Aigaios'. That night David explained the piece as a musical interpretation of a scene from 'The Perfect Storm' in which the waters swallow a ship & eventually silence into calm.

There are crows in 
this ceiling 
with wings of ocean
waters and beaks of 
shattered glass. 
They take movement
like waves take 
shadows and fold them.
 
These crows are
greenblue like
sunsets reflected 
on the calm of past
& lasted perfect storms. 
These crows catch long notes 
& draw them.  

While listening to the rehearsal of Brahms String Sextet No.2 in G major.

Can words swell & wane
as a melody may?
Although, I suppose
words carry more likeness
to the bows & fingers,
playing on instruments of
page & producing, instead 
of music, bruising thoughts 
& drowning emotions-

similies as rhyme &
crescendos the realization
of some sort of purpose. A
poem would be this 
sextet, in that the layers
of line, stanza, verse
return to each other & tangle
into chaos that emerges as
beauty- as bliss. 

What is a word without a verse? 

Based on what I heard Tuesday evening on church street. The ECCO quintet playing Mozart's no.4 in g minor.

An argument of sounds 
is a dance of sorts-
a battle of chords,
taking swings with things
like a sharp and
g flats. the musicians,
I can imagine, would 
stand, a trance fueled 
by the music in their
hands
and give each other battle
scars, cock their 
violins like clubs & 
their bows like swords;
tangle in a
brawl of sorts- or a waltz. 

Music fills a room
with a humid 
atmosphere comparable
to that of a heated
fight- to that of
the maple dust
in my head.

Lady Grey lives on the edges of misunderstanding
strums strings so that the beautiful things 
will come. Lady Grey
has eyes for ink stains. Comes & goes
like melodies. Written in 
much too sharp a key. Can't see 
without love
& can't see the future. 

& the grass sometimes
calls
her name, whisper words 
with undertones of forest
green, topaz shadows, harmonies 
of gold.
Cookie-cutter secrets fit in 
painted china plates, chipped 
at the hour lines, picking
at the urgency caught like 
leaves in Lady Grey's 
hair. Dew on her elbows
from when she tried 

I dislike this ending. Thoughts?

Indigo stars are
invisible at midnight.
You can only see them when
the sun shines, and
only if it doesn't blind you
as you look up to try to catch the beauty
on your tongue. &
it was cold so we cried
snowflakes down our cheeks. Rivers
formed from melting ice.
Candid dreamers swam from
bays at the bases of our
eyelids, through the ravines and to
our chins.

I never
told you this, but
you glow in the dark.
Your skin
draws in light. It's rather beautiful
I know because
I've never seen anything so
lovely.

He is only lungs and toes
with finger tips and
dangling arms. He is only
breaths and lungs and
he will not be here for long.

Pulling history and imagination
to his wayward pointing
eyes, lost in symmetry- intimacy
beauty-lies and butterflies,
he is tasting dirt and
air and blood and
getting nowhere.

He is suspended and endless;
liquid shadows lighting
his straight carved edges.
It will be his great pleasure
to touch the ground again.
It is just a tempered dream.
He is bloodied palms

I don't really like this one. Back to the drawing board.\

Because I need
to remember
every word that she said
when she
stormed out to
watch the sun set.
Leaving
well enough alone
in the darkness
to rest & my heart beat-
thump-thumping away.

Why didn't she stay?
It would have been okay.

& I'm waiting
& waiting, hovering
just above
sane, simply
because she has
gone.
Where did she go
when she left
me here? Why did she
run as the sun
disappeared?
Oh goddess of lightning &

It's raining postage &
the ink is staining the
cement. Painters paint, but
I'm no saint. I won't stand here
in the down pour much longer
waiting for some sort of
verification.

Dear Somebody Else,
I need you here.
I can
barely save myself, & I will
not be able to keep
this moment dry as the
world begins to cry.

The sky is fading grey and
white, the edges are misting
out of sight. The wind is
blowing in a storm
of sorts & time is blowing by.
I can only try, but I'm
no master in the art of

There's a lower air pressure
up in heaven- from the altitude
and they're all
fucking high- fucking crazy. I'm
just falling up to the sky,
it's not so strange as it seems to
be. No.

Nobody understands
falling
anymore. Not the sun nor
touching blazing stars.

My fingers are full of icecaps
& from my toes erupts a
chill of memories
beaten;
carried out
by the wind.
I lift with breaths full
of smouldering breezes,
built
up
with pollen- strung
from the mountain tops.

Please stop hating her.

She draws deepthroat wishes
with every footstep closing
in. She pulls a million years
of baggage tied with lace
to her fingertips. I promised
they were double knotted- she
made me swear and I swore
hard.
She is approaching me with
beautysmiles and lips lustrous
and purple with mistakes she'll
never admit she made. I
catch each breath, hoping
maybe she'll take my gift with
open eyes, I'm so tired of
her accepting with her tongue
tight and her mouth

“Just gonna stand there
& watch me burn? Well that’s
alright because I like the way
it hurts.”

I can hold flames in my palms,
it’s a gift I learned from
years of swift stealing sanity from
the brewing pools of hell.
I can trace ash stains on canvases
of ivory white. I can singe skincells-
embed nails in your throat. Sillygirl, I
will only kill you slowly if you promise
not to leave me. And we will die together
grim and grotesque roses firmly
fossilized in the amber throws of your
childhood home. I remember the way
you pulled the strings and snowflakes fell

i.
Sometimes I wish that
when you see me
you'll see the bruising. Triangles 
of blooming purple arcing 
in bands on my chest &
back. I'm bleeding internally 
from a broken heart. 

Sometimes I wish that when 
you see me you understand. 
& perhaps you do. Perhaps you 
simply do not care. I was just
hoping
that you could be my coagulant,
the one that binds my 
shattered platelets together. 

But alas, I'll go on losing
blood- turning slowly violet. 
I'll keep pulsing spirits 
through my veins- veins 
budding & branching & braiding 
& tides just below my skin

Sometimes the waves come,
but I can fly
so I survive.
Tonight, though,
I just let them come
& burst through my heart 
& spill from the rims
my eyelids
rubbed raw red
& warm. Pity tears, rushed together
until they were nothing 
like diamonds on my cheeks but 
muddy streams
dampening the way I taste
the atmosphere. Tears. Tears. 

I could hear them
everything 
their voices- hate full voices 
biting my ears tight
wound & high strung. 
I could hear everything. 
Their voices stinging. 
My sisters music miles away. 
Somewhere She is breathing. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

A poem, for me, begins with a line.
And from there, for me, it grows
from a word to a phrase to rhyme;
from a seed to a stem to a rose.

And from there, for me, it grows
& when you inhale, you breathe
from a seed to a stem to a rose
a million years of history.

& when you inhale, you breathe
and when you breathe, you learn
a million years of history
a thousand stories sent to burn.

And when you breathe, you learn
truths you'd never understand
a thousand stories sent to burn
and fester in the desert sand.

Truths you'd never understand:
A poem, for me, begins with a line

i. 
It's sweet to see you smile &
your voice
is like music- 
it is music. Why?
Beauty comes so naturally 
to you. 
It's enthralling. It's
uplifting. Delicate lines
compose you, but your hands produce sounds 
larger
than one would expect
with only the evidence of your 
thin smile.

I want to paint you on my 
palms & smear the colours
down your arms till 
we're both dressed in rainbows 
& I'm building you poetry 
& you're whispering melodies- 
Quiet.

ii. 
I want to touch your vibrato 
to my lips. Want to breathe your 
quarter notes in. I want to 

I have been waiting for slam poetry
to come to me, but
when the wind leaves 
the heat
is just heavy. There is so much
beauty in a silent knoll 
and a notebook. I wish the world could see. 
But mostly, I wish they never see-
because then we're just not
special. (And they don't deserve it)
I think the cruelty in this
frame of mind has
crippled me and cursed me
infertility. I'm not conceiving 
similes like I used to. 
Because when the wind leaves
the heat is just heavy. 

And I do recognize the irony 
in a poem about poems. There is a
mutual respect in the rhythm and 

There is no poetry in our reflection
as it is cast upon the polished floor.
Nor, it may seem, in this shadow world's lore
left unwritten in the proud convection
of our bruised and blundered misdirection
the twisted likes of which our heaven bore.
There is no poetry in our reflection
as it is cast upon the polished floor.

Your words are caught beneath the intersection
brought surely 'bout by melodies of war;
a cross between stark rhythms from poets of before
& suture prayers of bloody recollection.
There is no poetry in our reflection.

There are butterflies
brushing the tips of
October
they catch whisper winds and swing
into the heavenless
skies. Can you see the
gold left over by the monday sunshine?
Can't you taste it in
the crevasses of Tuesday
morning?
No?

I can.

There are line breaks
on my hands today. I've drawn them
with a tempered pen and
smudged them dry with my
swirl-touch fingertips.
Do you know the secrets left behind
in the weather-worn pockets
of blooming apple
trees?
No?

I do.

There are pinecones
in my throat, caught on the words
I couldn't bring myself
to put to a

What do you see
in between dreams?
She had fire cheeks & hotspring
lips. Her tongue was the flavor of oceans.
Her eyes touched me
in between dreams.

With fingers like ticker toys,
& raspberry shadows dipped
below her chin, she
hung her words- ebony carved like
music notes or shoulder rests;
pencil tip rips- onto the crest of my
sleeping ears.
She grabbed at my heart &
tore to the seams
when she pressed her lips to my lips
in between dreams.

Whirlwind colors
caught my eyes up
swirl up,
curl up. Dancing and drawing
her into me. Pulling her
closer and closer to me

I can taste black sharpie
on my tongue. It makes
my breath feel foreign
and wrong. I wonder if I
could spit out words
from my mouth. I wonder
if they'd dance onto my palms.

I have been stung by a
firebee. It's left a rosy welt
on the back of my hand.
The firebee touched me and
painted me with burns like the
wings of Icarus. Like the soles
of barefeet in the sand.

I want to have dreams in
paperplane colours. White and
red and green. I want to have
dreams in dandelion hues.
Yellow and pink and rum brown.
I want to have dreams in algodón

I come home and my son is sprawled on his stomach on the floor. Glitter is everywhere- on his face and his neck. His hands sparkle blue and green speckles and splotches of red snatching the waning sunlight. He isn't wearing a shirt, for that I allow myself a moment of relief. His chest though, is painted with rainbow arches and gaping smiles and tongues down his sides- purple tongues like those of jolly-rancher fiends or lollipop addicts. This is the day it all began. I tell Mark to stop coming over. I tell Ann to stop calling on weekdays.

I love this song very much. I have a bit of a weakness for anything in german.

I appologize in advance, I'm partially tone deaf- even after 5 years of playing the violin, I still can't really hear notes without a tuner. I've been told that I tend to go a little flat...

Also, I recorded this on our laptop, and our house is less than soundproof. You can hear the tv in the background from the next room over. And I believe at one point, you can hear the American Idol theme music. Isn't that epic?

This is a song by Bach called "Bist du bei mir"

lyrics:

Hey, 
let me write you a story. 
For old times sake. 

It's a silly little tale 
about a silly little girl & the 
winter & the ice blue of the
sky at 5:26 am. 
You will always be November
in my heart; that will never change. 
I'm fairly confident that once upon 
a time a man carved the first words
into the corners of your down wings
& since then & forever layers 
upon layers of poetry have been braided into
their soft feathers. 

At the edge of the winter
is a grace period for sinners. It's when 
Jesus breathes his silver smoke into

There aren't enough flowers in the world
to cover your grave, because
it's spread like a stain &
like a stain, it won't
go away. You don't deserve
this- there aren't enough flowers
to help you sleep. Your
memory touches everything
and in my heart I know that I'll
never forget you. Close your eyes
& pray- those are the rules.

Blue skies & Blue October.
Do you remember everyday
you lived? It's been a year now.
Do you still cry?
I'm so tired of questions.
Can't the world be
quiet today? In your memory.

Thank you, Aaron. I remember.