Sciences Participating with Arts & Culture in Education

I PICK UP SONGS QUICKLY

I Pick up Songs Quickly is a musician’s reflection on life’s sobering realities.
What if global greyness could be eliminated through music?

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing an anthem’s culmination.

Centuries of pain

heart-throbbing through slate halls.

Canaries. Vision’s dying

to many mining hopeful truth.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing calypso eco-friendly

striving to prevent

damage by urban sprawl.

Save our oceans, rivers, lakes.

We strain against extinction’s threat.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing descants in sheer frustration.

We search for relief.

Choking on earth’s hairballs –

conflicts, lies, and treachery…

compelled to lick our pus-filled wounds.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing deep never-ending dirges…

Hoping to silence

the world’s visceral drawl…

famine, plagues, flash floods, and fears

that pierce our ashen memories.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing a rant of unleashed passion.

Rocking lives away

behind abduction’s walls.

Brutal crimes of “No escape”,

erotic vi’lence, screams, and drugs.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing a lullaby to nations

sleepless in battle.

Hailstones of shrapnel fall –

bombs and blood and blasted limbs.

Air sirens shriek to no avail.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing requiem for race and creed.

Dead, death, dying, died.

In tomb-piled pits of gall­–

assassins’ blood-notched tallies.

scorn, murder, torture, genocide.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

“Discordant drumroll, please.”

Thrum tummy rum…ble.

Tum tummy tum…ble.

Strum slummy stum…ble.

Drum fiddly thumb gun.

Drum diddly dumb dun.

Drum deadly harm done.

Rat-a-tat-fat cats, rabid rats, broken slats.

Cymbal crash. Symbols clash.

Heavy metal top-hat smash.

Lethal barrage of commando jazz– spiking bars of rage.

Gunmetal bang, bang, bang!

What if only songs were sung

in universal truce.

Feel drums release their soothing sounds –

to calm our souls.

When drums release their joyous sounds

circadian rhythms praise.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I pick up songs quickly, you know.

Sing celebration symphonies.

Alive. Sheathed by bright

translucent waterfalls.

Safe. Ransomed, healed, accepted–

No pain, no hunger, thirst, or need.

You know, I pick up songs quickly.

I know I pick up songs quickly…                           Fade to grey.

Original illustration by author.