Leftoverturned

[Christopher Stewart]

(Detail from « American Quilt » by Natasha2006)

When I complete a composition there are often unused ideas left. Some of those I find actually pretty good but if I can’t see how to fit them into the piece then there’s not much choice but to discard them. For a while.

I rarely delete stuff, I archive. Once in a while I browse the archives and listen to such ideas in no particular order, and sometimes I get to see a way to combine some of them. Then I have the seed of a new composition.

« Leftoverturned » is a rehash of « Countless Questions, » « Informaëlstrom, » and ideas discarded from the « 1000 Radios » writing sessions. The origin of the leftover part of the title should be obvious by now, and the overturned part refers to the countless questions which have been vanquished, and have now vanished.

Given its structure and contents, the second part of the composition could have been entitled « Informaëlstrom II, » but because of the undeniable influence of Modest Mussorgsky’s « Night on Bald Mountain, » the full title finally evolved into « Atmospheric Disturbance Over Balkanian Mountain. » Please don’t ask. But you’re welcome to enjoy the clip.

As it is often the case with instrumentals, I have written poetry to accompany the music.

I had set out to understand
Which thoughts were best to be untwirled
Which lines were fit to make the strand
Which words were apt to free the world

As I advanced onto the quest
No issue left me unconcerned
No question was left unaddressed
No single stone was left unturned

Just driven on by a feeling
Proverbial mental splinter
I never knew needed healing
Explored ahead ever faster

The hands of time were overruled
Future and past blended and burned
Nobody could have had me fooled
The learned became the unlearned

Until one day I encountered
Round a corner of my psyche
Childhood events that had triggered
An invisible injury

And there and then I understood
My quest had been for disclosure
Of the wound that I had withstood
That robbed me of my composure

At first I blamed the offenders
Until I came to recognize
Playing our parts we were actors
We had not written my demise

Although that much had become clear
Most of the mystery remained
Of how I could rid me of fear
And of all that which had me pained

So on the path I walked along
Sincerely seeking the answer
Frequently deaf to my own song
To hear despair and desire

Arcane knowledge for you I yearned
As I explored ever further
The parts of me that had been burned
The heart that had learned to wither

And how often unwittingly
I strove against the unfolding
Of a process so fittingly
That mostly needed allowing

Onward I was driven by will
Guided by natural justice
All that time directing the bill
So it could school its apprentice

I scythe the sheaves and dig the roots
In my garden of souvenirs
The time has come to reap the fruits
Of endeavors over the years

On the threshold of a new life
The world I sought sincere I pray
One of love and of freedom rife
Almost in reach won't go away

The play complete the actors bow
The school is out the lessons learned
It has happened don't ask me how
Countless questions leftoverturned