Here’s the beginning of a short story to appear, or so I’m told, in the next issue of Black Scat Review. It’s a rollicking tale of a love triangle. Although rather bawdy in spots, it uses no four-letter words.

TWO AND ONE

Ivy was the one for Ira, and Ira was the one for Ivy. “It’s tea for two ’til the two get old and die,” he’d vow. And she did too.
But one day, Max saw Ivy. And who was Max, you may ask? For now, all I’ll say was Max was the man who saw Ivy. And who did say, “Wow! Dig her red lip and doe eye! Her tan bod and dye job! I’ll nab the fox!” And Max was not shy, not one bit.
“Hey, sis!” Max did cry.
Ivy did eye the big lug, and was not put off. Max was her own age—not fit, yet not too fat. You can see she set the bar low. But she was coy, was our Ivy…

A piano piece, in 9/8. The rest of it is rather syncopated.

A song about notary publics. They seem to have a pretty good gig. It can be found on That Regrettable Weekend and in The Doug Skinner Songbook.

Here’s another classic nipped in the bud, from Black Scat Review 18. This would save everyone a lot of trouble.

This profession of faith is ideal for sanctimonious choral groups. Here are the first two pages.

A song about an old woman and an old man who don’t meet, and the tropical fish who just want flake food. It can be found on That Regrettable Weekend and in The Doug Skinner Songbook.

This song was also performed by White Knuckle Sandwich back in 2001. I’ve done it more recently on my own as well.

A song about bores. White Knuckle Sandwich performed this one a couple of times, shortly before we separated.

The alphabet always seemed to have a sort of plot to me. Here’s one possibility.

THE ALPHABET

It started with abundance beauty and clarity
Apples and apricots for all
Birds and butterflies in the blue
Cats and dogs everywhere
But it grew feebler and grayer
As it hobbled and inched along
It grew jaded and kind of lost momentum
Somewhere in the middle
Niggling and obstreperous
Petulant and querulous
Reduced to senility and tremors
With age
Until it had very little to work with
But a few x-rays and yaks
And a zebra in the zoo
This is the way it ends
Not with a bang
Not with a whimper
But with a zyzzyva

One of my student pieces, a brief song with ‘cello and piano, on a text from an English-Chinese reader. Here’s the beginning.