LETTER
FROM THE EDITOR : RENNIE SPARKS : APRIL 2006
I've tried to pick love letters that speak of the eternal, mystical elements
of all love, but also contain intimate details specific to one personal love.
My favorite of these letters (though it's a dark one) is the first, "I
wiped your tears and sucked your cock". It's raw and true and so heartbreaking
in subtle, angry ways that I felt my spine tingling as I read it.
Here's the lyrics to a song I've just written. It was inspired by a love letter
I started and never finished...
WHITE LIGHTS
when you walked with me away from the strip mall bar
across the highway to that little graveyard
where plastic flowers bloomed in yellow grass
we sat on a broken bench listening to the cars pass
and right above your head in the branches of a tree
there were white lights swaying slowly in the breeze
there were white lights swaying in a tree
I know they were there to stop kids kicking over graves
or spray-painting tree trunks with their favorite rock band’s name
but sitting there with you almost touching your white hand
among the broken bottles crushed and faded cans
and those white lights swaying in the breeze
there was mystery singing from everything
the strip mall, the highway the boarded-up skating rink
they were calling our names in the strip mall parking lot
our sweet drunken friends finally noticing we’d gone
but we just sat there not saying anything
almost touching hands your hair flying in the highway breeze
like those white lights swaying in a tree
Rennie Sparks is the bass player and lyrcist for the gothic Americana band,
The Handsome Family (www.handsomefamily.com)
the
love letter collection