VOCAL - Three Songs on Poems by Wendy S. Walters (1993)

"Bermel set the texts inventively ["Nature Calls" / "Three Songs on Poems by Wendy S. Walters"]. Vocal lines moved effortlessly from song to speech to halfway between. The scores even seemed to ask for the dramatic movement and gestures that Timothy Jones used to make his performances almost magical."
- HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Program Notes:
I. one fly

one fly
was all it took
to send you thrashing around the house
moving in a way you hadn't for weeks.
i figured
you were upset by the space he took
but
i have been mistaken before

for the record
i am not (repeat)
not tired of your misdirected temper,
your bluesy dispositions, you persistent (gas) --
you know you know how to play me
so if you wouldn't mind
could you leave the fly be
and stay
here
(quiet some)
w/me.

II. airport poem

closing the light from this flight
i reclined to stew. the plane makes somber
turns over river necklaces and i think of
my love who prepares for me now
one sock one shoe one sock one shoe

picture my love waiting at the airport
for me alone the sole thing on his mind
me who is flying now on wings of steel (oh
the strength).

time disassembles itself with the fluidity
of cooked milk. skin forms and then
the precious white warm rushes and spills
through itself. i am flying in circles
while he stands, bristled by the creeping minutes.
when i come i say, "have you been here long?"
he says "i've been waiting quite awhile." Ah ha
i say waiting for me - and i thought you'd


III. Ma's Kitchen

Ma's kitchen was well stacked
with women all sizes same shape
big bottomed and busty
their strong arms grinding meat
crushing them into patties
w/painted fingernails
"AT MA'S WE SELL BIG MEAT"
that was what the sign read
but what Mo, Joe and Earl
(sons of Ma)
had really meant was that Ma's
was the home of the ultimate
carnivorous feast
a radical combination of pigs' feet
cow tongue, lamb shanks,
chicken wings and turkey gizzard
blended into a harmonious patty
strong enough to cure
the green protein delusions
of any vegetarian

and the vats were well stocked
because Ma's Kitchen's little helpers
were busy squashing and blending
the horse hooves, duck bills, and goat testicles
with their own sweat
which ran in buckets
mixing in with everything
making the meat sweet
so that every trucker
tailor and turncoat
would suckle and surrender
to meat as their muse