There is Giles

"Straight hair?" Giles said when I got out of the car yesterday. "I like it." He took another look at me. "No laptop?"

"No." I smiled, "I thought we'd read your work."

So after squeezing fresh oranges, opening a new bottle of blue Curacao, adding gin and sugar, Giles presents a decanter of some mouthwash-esque cocktail.

He served this in tiki-cups appropriate for this shell-decked apartment. Not bad.

Giles handed me a note card and a pencil. I sat down on the couch. "I want you to write some lyrics for me," he said. "Or a poem."

I must confess: I rarely write lyrics or verse of any nature. I like listening to it read aloud by another, or performed, but I don't write it.

"The only time I write poetry is when I'm making fun of someone."

"Then make fun of me."

Sounds awfully like a writing exercise. Punishment, perhaps, for not bringing my macbook.

"There is an alternative," said Giles. "You could say no."

For two minutes, I sat on his couch cracking up, scribbling along the lines of a note card this ridiculous portrait of Giles at home as he plucked cords at the keyboard.

Where tropic inspiration abounds

There is Giles

With seashells all around

There is Giles

Mixing potent second glance drinks, tiki torch cups, fresh squeezed oranges, bungalow furniture, surfboard in the laundry room and more seashells dangling from the cabinents--

"Shit in a bucket," he says, at the keyboard

Cool breeze, bright lights, rockstar name: Giles

South American Muse

Laughter turned my handwriting into indistinguishable graphic scratches. He played the music as I wrote so I knew, somewhat, the applicable tune. Wanting to make this as difficult as possible I knew I couldn't outwit him.

"I don't think I can sing a song with my own name," Giles laughed. "Can I change it?"

"No," I said. "It has to be Giles."

This is shaky at best; I was laughing:

"I can't play piano and I'm losing my voice so I won't sing." I tossed him the pack of cards and a pencil. "But I'll perform it."

"Fair enough."

I sat, silent, while he looked at me and wrote.

Straight hair intimidation

Long legged fascination

Physical query, intellectual answer

Daytime dreamer, midnight dancer

On dreams, no less clouds of inspiration

Too outwardly collected for perspiration

Inward chaos and mix-matched beauty

Freedom stares or looks away, blushing

-My humble portrait of Elizabeth Rushing

Gleefully I laughed; I love it. And I love that I have a friend in Savannah who is also a writer.

Giles' plays, by the way, are amazing. He's written scores of them, and put them on in various locations, both locally and abroad. Out loud and together we read a portion of one--I won't let go of any details yet as we didn't finish before I went home.