Passenger Seat (2006) |

Performers:
Ian Howell, countertenor
Sarah Kirkland Snider, piano

Excerpts from the poem by Noah Dobin-Bernstein

This song is the result of collaboration with poet Noah Dobin-Bernstein and countertenor Ian Howell, both of whom I met in an art song composition course at Yale.  Passenger Seat was premiered and recorded live at New Music New Haven, Yale University, New Haven, CT, on March 2, 2006.

Passenger Seat
by Noah Dobin-Bernstein

weary tail lights blink
as my eyes begin to shut
and the tail of one street lamp
strokes the nose of the next

the lights of the night become
the lights of my mind
bending once around
the day’s humiliation
bending twice around
your dusk-pulled shadow
lost and found again
in a flood-lit dream

with such ease Scheherazade’s
head displaced the pillow
mine struggles to be still
against the cold window
my stories and your threats
have both burnt out

I do not drive but curl instead
asleep in the passenger seat
as sharp-angled visions
pierce the circles of the day
the engine penetrates
while the highway shakes beneath
and aided by the wheels
time throws us from our feet