The Winterlings

2011-07-22T23:31:00.001-07:00

Spinneret

2011-07-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

Spinneret

Last night, I threw a spider in the yard

A small black star, hurtling towards

a billion blades of grass.

When he hit, did he lift

His eyes and see the stars

His old brothers whose webs

will shimmer and stretch

when our world has bloomed

and gone?

And did his tiny heart sing just

a little: a spark, a simple sigh…

for nothingness, the gentle thread

That binds us all with light

~Wolff Bowden

Call of The Muse: The Winterlings

2011-05-19T21:12:00.001-07:00

Winterlings food

2011-04-23T11:15:00.001-07:00

The Banjo and The Pony

2010-12-29T16:57:00.000-08:00

The Banjo and The Pony

As I remember, it was near Christmas

and my father let me choose.

One was a mammal, and I was just seven

so I chose the one with hooves.

But sometimes I heard that banjo unchosen

when I lay down in the dark

and I swear that the notes rang

like the hooves of my pony

as I rode him across our farm.

My pony he grew into a stallion

and he ran so fast it stung.

Fireflies died against my chest as we’d ride

and wind blasted hard through my lungs.

But where was the banjo I’d forsaken?

Where were the notes I’d never played?

Sometimes I’m sure we all are haunted

by the songs that got away.

~Wolff Bowden & The Winterlings

We looked at an old motorhome but it had a propane leak and no hot water and lots of wasp nests and other troubles like a broken ladder and a mouse with a very tiny face who seemed annoyed for no apparent reason when we lifted a cushion

2010-12-22T22:16:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings in Charlotte with a Belly Dancer and Visual Artist on stage with us "interpreting" our sound.

2010-12-22T09:16:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings in Charlotte with a Belly Dancer and Visual Artist on stage with us "interpreting" our sound.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Martin Luther King Jr

2010-12-18T10:31:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings will be passing through Charlotte playing at the NoDARioty Market Wed and Thurs, then onward to FL. Check out our shows page for more info: http://www.winterlings.com/SHOWS

2010-12-14T20:54:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings are Southbound Soon...Stopping off in Charlotte on Wed/Thurs

2010-12-13T15:05:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings are Southbound Soon...Stopping off in Charlotte on Wed/Thurs

The Winterlings are Back on The Charts at #6!!! Come see us tomorrow live in Philadelphia!

2010-12-10T17:48:00.001-08:00

http://www.rootsmusicreport.com/index.php?page=charts&name=folk

The Winterlings are back on the charts at #6 come see us live in Philly tomorrow night http://www.rootsmusicreport.com/index.php?page=charts&name=folk

It's snowing outside the sliding glass and the little flurries seem happy to whirl and drift.

2010-12-10T10:36:00.001-08:00

Holiday Gallery

2010-12-09T10:13:00.001-08:00

We still have a few paintings left from our holiday gallery which will make amazing gifts and support the future songs of The Winterlings! http://www.winterlings.com/ArtHolidayGallery2010.htm

The Crowd at a recent show! Very small, but really loved our music!

2010-12-08T20:21:00.001-08:00

"Our love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning. Our sleep is a secret tunnel that leads to the scent of apples carried on the wind." Pablo Neruda

2010-12-07T19:06:00.001-08:00

Will you please review The Winterlings on Amazon or Itunes? We'll send you a bumper sticker!

2010-12-07T12:00:00.001-08:00

Will you please review The Winterlings on Amazon or Itunes? We'll send you a bumper sticker!

A gorgeous new album from Chris Dorman! Sita is as magical as first snowfall. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chris-Dorman/112741712074186?v=wall

2010-12-06T11:00:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings Welcome Kingston to the World!!!!

2010-12-05T09:02:00.001-08:00

According to the Common Ground program for Sunday, we're going to be playing "Bird on Corn" which is preferable, we suppose to "Bird on Crack" In fact, Corn IS the new Crack (if you're a bird)

2010-12-04T00:01:00.001-08:00

Five hour snow drive to Donegal, PA, nearly running out of gas while lost in the mountains. Played a show with Amanda on violin again after 3 months break and she played gorgeously while her nephew was being born in Florida. Sang On The Night You Were Born in the little guy's honor. Ate pan roasted Salmon with artichoke risotto. Drove to Downtown Pittsburgh and sold six paintings (4 Amanda's, 2 Wolff's) at midnight to a collector who is getting married tomorrow night. Nested at the home of beloved friends. All in a day's work for The Winterlings.

2010-12-02T21:48:00.001-08:00

First Snow in Burlington, VT!

2010-12-02T08:19:00.001-08:00

Wolff Enjoys a moment in Vermont.

2010-12-01T17:18:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings at NERFA Ripton Coffee House Guerilla Showcase!

2010-12-01T13:07:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings and 2/3 of the Amaaazing Bread and Bones!

2010-11-30T12:06:00.001-08:00

http://www.breadandbones.com/

One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this. Don Quixote

2010-11-30T01:32:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings In Studio at WMUD Vermont!

2010-11-29T17:40:00.001-08:00

Have you seen the film: Lovely, Still God, it's gorgeous. http://www.lovelystillthemovie.com/

2010-11-28T03:06:00.001-08:00

A fine 8 hour drive to Vermont where we sang and ate crepes and visited a radio station in an 1800's barn with pistols and saws on the walls. Vermont is a different country and the people are immensely kind. 3 offers of a place to stay, but, alas, we had already booked Econolodge...

2010-11-26T21:54:00.001-08:00

All of The Good Things The Winterlings' Music Video from THE ANIMAL GROOM

2010-11-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

“Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.” --Kahlil Gibran

2010-11-24T12:17:00.001-08:00

The Winterlings: Tin Angel CD Release Show

2010-10-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

After soundcheck, and a long tuning session with our rebellious banjitar, Jagadeesh, we spent several hours in the red-graffiti-walled green room. It was a tight space with two huge armchairs and a few feet of carpet between. In the corner sat a massive ice machine which periodically made a sound like a sudden car wreck or a barking dinosaur. Ten minutes after eight, we were called to the stage and found the club sardine packed, wall to wall ears, spotlights bright upon my tuxedo shirt as we launched into “You & I.” And on went the night. With voices singing along from the tidepools of flickering candles spread through the club. With lyrics like invisible arms reaching out of us into the dark. With cameras flashing like handfuls of sunlight thrown like confetti. With stories pouring from our lungs in winds shaped into language by our tongues. With clapping and tambourine stomping and bodies swaying from chorus into silence.

Wolff Bowden & The Winterlings

A Final Note

2010-10-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

A Final Note

There will be people making music

on the day the world ends. They will

be rosining their horsestrings as a comet

the size of

Egypt

takes us all into the dark.

As the sky goes supernova, human hands

will touch the skin of mammals long extinct,

from a time when there were more than

just insects and us.

But we wanted to trade wind and trees

for larger numbers on larger screens

so we might sit in larger rooms and eat larger

pieces of genetic meat, the kind we grew on

cows we changed so they were born without

eyes or legs.

In every billion-peopled city where the smog

drifts through the streets like liquid whales,

consuming cars, high above, in shoebox rooms,

they will be strumming plastic guitars.

Or perhaps the world will end at night, will end soft.

A black blanket thrown down upon a mostly sleeping crowd.

And a single cricket on a stone, in a river void of fish,

will lift his song against the end,

will know just what note to sing.

Wolff Bowden, 2010

Poetry Reading

2010-09-24T13:05:00.000-07:00

Poetry Reading

When I reach the podium

all I want to be is this poem.

I don’t want to be a man standing here

reading this. Not even a brilliant man.

Not even a genius. I just want to be

these words in your ears. I want to

be sound, plunging down your auditory canal

into the damp expanse of your mind,

over the reef of your brain where the sea turtles

and angelfish are flapping their happy fins,

stirring sand to the surface. I want to be

that sand and that sea and the words that

make it happen. Because every heart

becomes an ocean, the moment it

starts to listen.

~Wolff Bowden

Roofing in Belize

2010-08-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

Roofing in Belize

After the 67th Hurricane this century,

we began at last to understand the missionaries

who told us the good book would save us

from the lash of eternal hellfire,

the sour mango taste of poverty.

Even if we had money

there were no shingles in the city.

The Prime Minister glued them over pot-holes

so he could win his re-election.

They crumbled to coffee grounds

within a week.

Uncle Myron, the police officer,

through his thin window at the station

watched a single flying shingle

decapitate a looter in one second.

In the eye of the storm we took shelter in

the concrete block church on Hecker road.

The missionaries had fled for America

seven days before, a timespan

they said was enough for God

to build a whole new world.

So many iguanas died, we crunched

their bones on our walk home, carrying

boxes of Bibles on our shoulders,

singing creole songs.

What was left of our roof was leaking

on the bedsheets on the babies, so

we dunked the Bibles in creosote and

laid them down like shingles.

Our roof looked like the heavens:

pitch black, sparkling here and there.

Two hundred Bibles crucified

by constellations of roofing nails.

Wolff Bowden

The Crayon

2010-08-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Late last night in my art studio I heard a slight whispering crunch in the corner next to the towering shelves where I store my supplies. So I turned on my heels with the intention of finding out just who was making this sound. Was it one of the million lizards that roam the yard, gobbling ants? Was it a misdirected dragonfly trapped beneath a plastic bag? I heard it again and the sound struck me as being that of a tiny car, a matchbox car, rolling down a cold patch of concrete on an autumn day, kicking up leaves in it’s wake. But this was the thick of a summer night and I was wary also of the massive spiders which lately had been dashing across the walkway outside. I crept right up to the source of the sound and watched as a lone crayon rolled out from beneath a sketch of a blue hot-air balloon that I couldn’t remember sketching. The crayon rolled very deliberately up to my shoe and tapped into it with the force of a hammer. I was astounded! Did something roll this crayon out from under the mystery sketch? He couldn’t have rolled out all by himself, could he? As I pondered all this, he backed up and rolled into my shoe again. I didn’t see this, but felt the tap, so I lifted my shoe and he rolled right under it. “Aren’t you a rambler,” I said, watching him roll along the paint spattered floor. Now, it’s not every night you see a rambling crayon, so I had to think quick. He was headed for the garage door, which I had cracked slightly to vent the studio. Did I have time to video this rolling crayon. No. At the rate he was moving, no. So I relaxed and just enjoyed the sight of that lone, blue (almost turquoise) crayon making his way towards the enormous night. It was 3:34 AM when he slipped out under the stars. I closed my eyes and listened as he spun the one long wheel of his body down the driveway, under the car and onward to wherever crayons go when they are finished coloring. In his little paper jacket, down the slope to the road, he went.

Our Biggest Fan.

2010-08-20T21:08:00.001-07:00

The Winterlings Manifesto

2010-08-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Every day, we live through four seasons. From the spring of early morning to the deep winter of night, where we wade through shifting blizzards of dreams. Winterlings dwell in this season, with pens in our fists and paintbrushes gripped in our teeth, giving birth by starlight, lifting songs from the ocean of sleep...

Nightwinter is the season where we fly as easily as we breathe, bidding the cocoon of gravity goodbye, sprouting monarch’s wings. The season where cricket songs brighten small shadows beneath sleeping oaks. Where campfires bloom with the light of logs turning to ghosts. Where our ribs become bronze strings on the old guitars of our hearts. Where we dance across a pristine ocean on the backs of great blue whales.

When morning arrives, most of us shake the Nightwinter out of our coats like a dog come ashore from a lake. With alarm clocks and coffee and a dose of dark news, we erase the night with the day. But a few refuse to shake the moonlight from their skin. A few who roam in tuxedoes of poems, in gowns of dew and lightning. A few who stand in full sun, and yet feel the constellations moving through them. A few whose smiles are light as dragonflies. A few who refuse to remove their marvelous midnight wings. A few who drink rain straight from the sky and become children again. These, we call The Winterlings.

If you listen like a magnet to the wild iron of song, you are a Winterling. If your eyes behold a blessing between every pair of blinks, you are a Winterling. If you burn to paint the canvas of your days, you are a Winterling. If you feel the bliss of breath as it moves through your hollow chest. If novels evolve you and films make you weep for the dreams of your fellow beings. If you raise your eyes to watch a stormcloud being born over the sea. If you hold still while the twilight fills your ears with whippoorwills. If a lyric can swoop into your silent mind and give you chills.

If you lean like a seedling towards the saffron pouring from the sky. If you leave your room at sunset so fire-rimmed mountains might fill your eyes. If you bend to your lover’s lips as the sea-wind bends a kite. If you carry with you, though secret and slight, a sliver of infinite night. You are a Winterling.

-Wolff Bowden