From the Quill: There Is a Place

I want to try a bit of an experiment on HTML vs. esthetics. I'm hoping that what will come out of this will be a means to post verse: keeping the stanza's lines together, and breaking between them. I tried last night, but didn't like the results, so I pulled that post while I gave this some thought.

Last night, I'd just finished editing the previous post — i.e., invested a further hour or so in straightening out the paragraphs, fixing the breaks, etc. — and was listening to some of my 1980s music (EWTN was carrying a repeat, so the TV was off).

(I'm deeply sentimental about both my daughters (this makes them squirm nervously, and groan and run away when they see that look in my eye)... at least, when they were younger.) As with everyone else, I suppose, certain songs can take me back to earlier parts of my life, and bring nearer to me (if only in my heart) someone I knew then, or someone AS I knew them then.

So while listening to Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town", I could hear again in my head my little (then-) ~three-year-older singing in the car, "Hey, oh, ma-ma-ma…, hey, oh, ma-ma-ma!" in her sweet and squeaky voice. And just about ten years later she absolutely shrieked when she caught the Beatles reference in one of the stanzas.

Anyway, in that same folder is Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram's "Somewhere Out There" from the animated "An American Tail" film. And I remember that when that song hit the radio, I was a bit annoyed — I'd written a verse with a very similar story to its own words; now I couldn't publish it without someone somewhere out there thinking I'd rewritten the song into a piece of my own.

Wrong. I wrote "There Is a Place—" early in 1985 (and still have the drafts); the song from that movie charted most of a year later, I recall. In any case, I offer that verse for your reading pleasure. Please note that this does NOT fall under "Steal My Stuff", so please don't; I want to be sure this piece is in one of several books of verse I hope to publish before much longer. I don't mind giving you folks a peek, though.

(Actually, with several volumes ready to go, I can see that they're of various degrees of quality, from crapful to tearful… a difference I can't always make out, though, I admit.)

There Is a Place—

You've started the fire and its glow is a sunset
     in the stone-finished room
And there you lie on your elbow two glasses and a bottle
     on the rug beside you
All is quiet as a flame shadow caresses your cheek
     or maybe some salted water
Through the window the opal stars are watching
     and but for them you are alone—
Let me be with you tonight.

I've finished the paper and it lies in a sprawl
     across the deep-scarred table
And here I sit in my chair two bottles and a glass
     empty there before me
The music is loud as a fleeting hope passes in my heart
     or maybe a wish for your smile
Through the window the street lights are watching
     and but for them I am alone—
Let me be with you tonight.

You've crawled into bed and its cold embrace
     in the fresh-darkened room
And there you lie in the dark a pillow and a space
     in the bed beside you
A sob you give as the day's sorrow closes your eyes
     or maybe another night alone
Through the window the opal stars are watching
     and but for them you are alone—
Let me be with you tonight.

I've opened the couch and it stretches askew
     over the tiny room
And here I lie in the dim a wish and a space
     in the bed beside me
A sigh I breathe as the day's tension shuts now my eyes
     or maybe another night alone
Through the window the streetlights are watching
     and but for them I am alone—
I can't be with you tonight.

Somewhere in the opal stars there is a place
     where wishes and dreams are real
Where people we can't be and places we fear to go
     do not trouble our hearts and minds
Where the solitude of the day and the loneliness of the night
     have never been nor ever shall be
And where we who've never learned to open arms and souls
     can embrace those who shyly have watched us
There I am with you tonight.