In this Styrofoam Room – 2017 (fl, ob, cl, sop, vln, vc) performed by Kamratōn

An insect in a garbage heap lays unfertilized eggs and pines for a lover who never arrives.  Text by Zachary Webber

My love:

My eggs in a line like blister pack tabs go
Grasshopper ink
-the candy tabs of dew

My cooling eggs
Fading from pink to brown
-to black

My eggs,
Glistening
Black like eyes taken out of a mouse
-glistening, but forever still


I’m heavy with a fertile swollen beauty
My abdomen stout-ever
My vent burning hot
(and it smells good all the way down)

	I can kneel nearer and nearer to you
	And feel you with my feelers

I’m heavy with a fertile swollen beauty
-vent burning hot in this Styrofoam room

In this Styrofoam Room

For Quince Ensemble and ECO Ensemble

I — I’ve Sweet Sweet Man
I’ve sweet sweet man
So soft in face
For cuz: eats lots sweets I’ve sweet sweet man
I’ve sweet man,
Only, can’t get boner For cuz: eats lots sweets
Wrote song to plumb love’s depths Wrote song in face of void
So soft, in face of void
My sweet sweet man 

II — Got Letter, Last Week
Got letter, last week Said mother died
Letter said mom went out
Bent like ostrich
Hugged each animal in the barn goodbye Gave small kisses
Letter said mom’s death terrible, long Said mom cried like seabird
Said mom cursed my name
Said mom could barely go on, for pain Said mom kept going
Said mom moaned like buzzard
Said mom lived much longer than necessary In pain
To finish cursing name 
 
III — It Wasn’t Me
It wasn’t me
What shooted Polly Vaughn
Polly Vaughn, what looked like swan
Was Vergen
What shooted her
Vergen say don’t know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’, I know But, was Vergen, I know
She looked right like swan
Said Vergen, what shooted her
And her child bended down, Polly Vaughn And reached in his hand, the bleedin’ tummy And pulled out three eggs of gold 
 
IV — It Wasn’t Vergen, What Shooted Me
It wasn’t Vergen, what shooted me Was Jimmy
Jimmy is jism-eyed turd mounder Fap off on puppy, Jimmy!
Fap off on your mom’s puppy!
I do not look like swan!
Your bung-hair has peens for bung-hair!
The peens your bung-hair has for bung-hair have peen-warts! The peen-warts look just like your tosspot-titted queef-face!
Spunk-sprouting monkey-flumper! Creampie-brained booger-wannabe!
I do not look like swan! 

V — His Majesty, King Rumrill’s Composition
Twiddle
Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet
Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep
Caw, caw, caw, caw
Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo
Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw
Tweet twiddle, tweet twiddle twiddle
Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw
Twiddle, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle
Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack

Songs of an Unnamed Kingdom

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Part V, Hymn and soliloquy

The desperate giver turned her head and snuck a bite away 
At the very highest tides, you know, the river flows the other way

The river goes the other way
The river flows the other way
It turns around as if to say, “I’m backing up, I’m going mad.”
And all the water flows away
The river goes the other way

As if to say, 
“I’m giving up I’m going out I’m taking leave of everything”

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers

08 Hymn and soliloquoy

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Part IV, The part about the eating

In the flood, a young mother, clinging to a branch

And the children say: Fear is but our urge to continue
And the children say: Our smiles, our games were built upon our fear of violent death 
And the children say: We are scared.

“If I am not to eat of you my love,
Why does your fat soften on my tongue?”
The fear of a violent death: The hummingbird beats its wings 
The fear of a violent death: A mossy hump of soil, into of which our mother dug our nest.
Into which each life was built. 

The fear of a violent death: A mossy hump of soil.
The fear of a violent death: Bare ribcage of a last year’s leaf.

Pale green head, lifted up on the neck of a sprouted seed.

“If I am not allowed to eat of you, my love
Why do you place your match-stick neck in my jaw?”

And the children say: Life is but an illusion that makes matter move
And the children say: Hunger is but an illusion that makes matter merge
And the children say: Death is but a word for the merging of matter   

“If I am not to dream of your essence, my love
Why do you blow on my face with your savory breath?”

And the children say: We are scared, but peacefully so
In the last of the daylight we can see a ghost

“If I am not to eat of you
Why does your meat fill my stomach,
My love?”

07 The part about the eating

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Interlude II

Under Ilex
Under Cornus

Gently licking little heads
Gently licking little heads
Quiet kindness under Ilex,
Gently licking little heads

Rooted thatch of nesting bed,
We console our fussing children,
Pebbled walls of nesting beds
Gently licking little heads

Gently licking little heads
Quiet kindness under Ilex,
Lying always under Ilex
Gently licking little heads

Gently licking little heads
Gently licking little heads
Quiet kindness under Ilex,
Gently licking little heads

06 Interlude II

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Part III, A plea for the impossible

Were it a choice I would feast on my lungs
I'd grow fat on lungs and I’d make you a meal
A delicate foam, a frothy milk of lung
A wish to eat of my lungs

So that you, My Love
You could drink of the milk of my lungs

And if I could I would feast on my face
I'd lick out my eyes and I'd chew up my nose
A familiar taste, a salty milk of face
A wish to swallow my face

So that you, My Love
You could drink of the milk of my face. 

If it were a choice, I would suck, with my tongue,
The earthen marrow out my every bone
To make a dark stew, a brothy marrow milk
How I have wished I could crack open all of my bones

So that you, My Love
You could drink of the milk of my bones. 

If it were a choice, I would feast on my heart,
I'd be strong once again and I'd make you a meal
Your mother's heart, whipped, a pink milk so rich
You'd never feel hungry again

If you, My Love
Could drink of the milk of my heart.
Had I the chance I would feast on my stomach,
A gummy ribbon, plucked like a worm from a stump
But, then, lovely buttermilk to drink-- a milk of stomach
A wish to eat of my stomach

So that you, My Love
You could drink of the milk of stomach.

If I had the choice, I would feast on my brain
Crack the shell of sweet nutmeats
Drink my milk and know the sweetness of my love
You would know my darkest thought, My Love

If you, My Love
Could drink of the milk of my brain.

05 Part III, A plea for the impossible

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Part II, Which describes an unpleasant dream, and other things

My joints, in dreams, sprout feathered wings
My wings, in dreams, grow slick with slime,
My slime, in dream, is sickly sweet,
To eat in dreams, to breath, and talk,
To feel the breeze, to smell the river’s mist,
To climb to rest upon a rock
To feel the sun, to breath and talk

Floating under water
Holding on for dear life
Hold me little daughter
Onward as we sink down to the bottom of the river

04 Part II, Which describes an unpleasent dream, and other things

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Interlude I

Bland seed
All I’ve had is bland seed,
Blood dreams

03 Interlude I

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Part I, Where the mold comes

Under Ilex, under Cornus
Sleeping under powder-leaf as

Cooling in the later summer
Brought us mold, upon the Ilex

All the leaves upon the Cornus
Wizening with every hour

Leafy falling ash about us,
Stippling in azure powder

Under Ilex, under Cornus
in the burrow of last season

Licking fur of fussing children  
Spending nights there, curled up with them

Under Ilex, under Cornus
Dreaming under powder-leaf as

Ashy leaves fall down around us,
Stippling in azure powder

Leafy falling ash about us
Spending nights there, curled up with them

Dreaming there of milky sweetness
Daughters pressing up against us

Under Ilex under Cornus
Lying always under Ilex

02 Part I, Where the Mold Comes

The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers, performed by Quince

The story of a mother who, in a starving blight, eats her children and discovers language.

Prelude

We have a particular interest in
The suffering of several animal friends so
If you have the time go ahead, settle in
The Passion of the Wilt-Mold Mothers will begin

01 Prelude

The music of Curtis Rumrill explores the intersection of literary form and modern chamber music. His works with writer, naturalist and visual artist Zachary Webber tell darkly comic stories of animals in desperate or violent predicaments.

In May 2019 Kamratōn, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and Shana Simmons Dance will premiere his new opera, Her Holiness, The Winter Dog. His music has been commissioned, premiered and performed by, among others, Ensemble Dal Niente, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, NAT 28, Kamratōn, Alia Musica, Tony Arnold, Thomas Rosenkranz, Aiyun Huang, Jordan Dodson, Kenneth Meyer, the Syracuse University Contemporary Music Ensemble, Lisa Cella and Juna Winston.

He has been performed in the United States and internationally, including Vienna, Austria; Basel and Baden, Switzerland; Maccagno, Italy; Panama City, Panama; Bogota, Colombia; Mexico City, Mexico; Boston, MA; Bloomington, IN; Cleveland, OH; Bowling Green, OH; Pittsburgh, PA; and Syracuse, NY.

In 2013 Rumrill co-founded MusicArte Panama, a new music festival in Panama City, Panama. He is also Board Chair of Alia Musica, a Pittsburgh based New Music ensemble and presenting organization.

Aside from his work in New Music, Rumrill is a committed activist for social justice. This work, a constant over the last decade and a half, has taken many forms: housing, racial justice, activist legal defense, anti-sweatshop and labor organizing.

Rumrill holds a BMus in composition from Syracuse University and a MM in composition from Bowling Green State University. He is currently a Doctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley.

CurtisRumrill