Thomas Arthur Turner, music, Tongue Tied, writen in about 1938 or sometime around there. Dad wrote the lyrics and melody, someone set it to music (my parents mentioned that they paid someone to do that, neither mom nor dad knew how to notate music). The first page of this sheet music survived for 90 years, but in the interim one page was lost. I remember as a child knowing the part that was lost. I reconstructed it to the best of my ability, and sent both the exising sheet music and audio (from playing piano, recorded on my phone of the missing piece).

I had a huge difficulty getting Tunescribers to figure out how to put the two together….. but ultimately they managed to make this performance video (the hands had to be removed since the original performance video was so slow as to be laughable). This performance (without hands) is almost like the sheet music.

My audio part just sounds like garbage, not really because i remembered and played garbage, but difficulties in putting the two together occurred… — it took two months to arrive as something that remotely sounds like the piece dad wrote, — i had to ask them to REDO it, and play the sheet music with the chords too big to play except as an arpeggion (they just left some notes out), and to please hold the tied notes, (they played the tied notes twice (which cancelled out the syncopation that I know dad liked), and to please play the song a tempo (i didn’t mention the tempo for them to use, and they played it like a durge in the first performance video).

But this video is close to the tempo I play the piece.  I had to laugh that sometimes there are no keys greyed out when there are lots of notes being heard….. so i think this technology (and the technicians) are not quite up to “tempo” not to make a bad pun.

At this point, i am quite sure that i am the only one who cares about dad’s music anyway…LOL. so i am not pressing for a second re-d0.

Tongue tied performance video….. a song composed by my dad, for my mom.

MP4 of Tongue tied.

You are not the
Sky unable to decide to
Drop its grey clouds to
Just below the edge of
The planet. You are not the
Planet with plates
Cracking, I think I mean
Laughing at feet above
that won’t
Maintain their balance
And monuments shed
Their riders in the
Middle of a park once
So peaceful in a
Month ending summer.
You are not a burning
Need to have crowds
In awe though they
Gasp at you and
How you wake each
Sunrise only to create.
A piece of van gogh’s afterlife
Or wish to say in words
But cannot, what
You are. Anyone
Can reach for an
Expletive in frustration
At a missing piece in
The picture of you.
Anyone can search
For a figure of
Speech that has
Not been heard
On the runway and
Dance floor. Anyone
Can hope to sit
Not caring if
The world spins
lawless
Or if the movie at
The drive in ends.

Life, it started
Not in a burst
But in a gentle
Tumble of pins
A click, not a
Crack.
It was as
you straightened
My collar
The feeling
Of light rippling
On the spine.
As you stood
Close to me
Behind.
Life, of it,
Less is known
If seen close in
Place and time.
Looking for
Meaning,
The meaning is
Clear of your wave
Despite any dust
In the way
As the
Observation car
Disappears from
Sight.

There were two letters
You had never shown
To me. Two letters
On the back of a
Charm I guess
You’d say. I don’t know
The names of ornaments.
Of gold pieces worn on
A gold string of links.
A rosette fairly finely
Made with two letters
On back of the
Rose to
Lay
flat below the
Neck and above
All, the heart.
The letters
Began a name.
It is too clear
To ask how
Despondency
Comes from
The heart with
Sense unengaged.
The name,
from
The two letters
Engraved upon
A heart that
Was never shown to me.

RLB 02-08-2024

At work everyday,
almost, the
Tie you bought
I wear
Though there is
No reason to
Believe but it is hope
Which Has no equivalent.
That you will like
me more.
A clip for the
Tie, I’d ask for
Just ask, nothing
Is less useful
Than to beg but
It must be
Unquestioned of
Weight and
Solid gold.
So pure no one
Would try and
Scratch their
Way between us.
Or a pearl shirt
I wanted,
For you to
Give
made from
finest cloth
And though from
The loom it
Was unmarked.
I wash anyway
The bleach
Undoes the past
And there
my care
is sure that
You may like me
each fresh warm
tropical morning
Worn for you
From that day forward

RLB 02 06 2024

Near the block where
I grew up
I don’t know where I’d
Meet you
Across the gym
In your prom dress
With someone
Else
At work knowing
More than I could
Hope to.
I don’t know where
I’d meet you.
Without asking since
Asking brings rebuffs
Though they’re little
As if in a cart
Marked down.
Every one is sweetly
Given, no comment
of reservation,
Then, maybe to
Remember, you play,
The notes
Reminders each of
A moment between
Uncertainties that
Was happy. Now
You are not unhappy
But not like me
Blessed and blissful
In the moments
Remembering how I
Met you.

RLB 1/29/2024

That red brick grammar
School is no longer there.
A lefty, steve hit a soft
Ball firmly off its
Upper level wall.
Only knowing him
slightly, thought he’d
make something of
himself with that
hard high drive that
went farther (it was not
further.., there’s the
grammar learned at
Levitt avenue school). I
thought he’d do
something in life though
I only knew him lightly.
Not even the house he
was raised in
the small town pretending
To be of Scottish descent
I guess
I have no sense of what
success is…or whether
it is sweetly fragrant
though a bust
of burt Lancaster in
a hall of fame would
be titled, my friends
from childhood are
friends for life.
I know that hitting
A ball apparently
occasionally hit well
seems to be a substitute
for success as memory
substitutes for kids
I didn’t know well
enough to still be friends.

If caught unaware by
What might be taking the
Last breath, I don’t want
The thought to be the word
no. No, It Must be a picture
that you can be wearing
anything when you look
that good.

Maybe some
things learned and some
things not; one falls neither
there nor not there…some
things like when is and
what is
that last thought and
breath. But, there
are no buts. I do know
I am saved not by me,
by someone
Else, by how in the midst
Of it all…all the cursed
Failures, and wishes, those
Horrible wishes, by how
You look so good.

The obvious is ignored
In the struggle,
In the lists and
Priorities…they
Will disappear and
Really aren’t worth
Passing before,
As they say,
Your eyes. Though
I want to have
What is in that
Last breath is,
Solely about me,
so to
never and I mean
Never
For a second,
Less than a
Moment, ignore how
Good you look to me.