Stephen Halloran - 1939 - Part 3/9 (1998)

Stephen Halloran, composer
Jennifer Elowsky-Fox, piano

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker
Nine Pieces for Piano
Part 1: The Galilee Hitch-Hiker
Part 2: The American Hotel
Part 3: 1939 (see below)
Part 4: The Flowerburgers
Part 5: The Hour of Eternity
Part 6: Salvador Dali
Part 7: A Baseball Game
Part 8: Insane Asylum
Part 9: My Insect Funeral
These piano pieces were composed after the poems of Richard Brautigan. This set of poems, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, is contained in a still larger work, The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. The piano pieces are intended to be performed as a set, with or without narration - between each work or at the onset. The work was commissioned by Jennifer Elowsky-Fox and was released on a compact disk entitled, Pictures and Images released by ShaderGator Records at www.madeintheshade.com

1939
Part 3

Baudelaire used to come
to our house and watch
me grind coffee.
That was in 1939
and we lived in the slums
of Tacoma.
My mother would put
the coffee beans in the grinder.
I was a child
and would turn the handle,
pretending that it was
a hurdy-gurdy,
and Baudelaire would pretend
that he was a monkey,
hopping up and down
and holding out
a tin cup.

Copyright 1998 by Stephen Halloran.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• coffee
• slums
• slums of Tacoma
• Tocama coffee
• beans
• grinder
• hurdy-gurdy
• hurdygurdy
• monkey
• sheet
• music
• score
• tin
• cup