Wednesday September 23rd, 2009

The exercise:

Something a little different today: Santa Monica lines.

Here be the idear: the first poem (mine) uses the first line of the Everclear song as its first line; the second poem uses the second line of the song as its first line; the third uses the third as its first, and so on.

There are some great lines throughout the song that I think would work great as first lines. Let us see how far we get.

Mine:

I am still living with your ghost,
In the night I see you the most.
When sleep won't come I walk these halls;
I hear your voice within these walls.

I search for you from room to room,
Not fearful of this homely tomb -
Only eager to see your face,
To meet the eyes that made hearts race.

You always wait at the table,
Like a princess from a fable.
We talk until the sun does rise,
Then you wipe dry my tearful eyes.

And just like that you're gone again;
I'm alone in our chilly den.
I pour myself a little drink,
And try my hardest not to think.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Hmm, interesting topic for today. I like your poem, although the last two lines of the third stanza seem a little strained. "We talk until the sun does rise" would be more natural without the does (but I can see that the line needs another syllable from somewhere), and the line after seems to have one too many syllables. Still, if that were all that were wrong with most of my poems I'd be thrilled!

Oh, and you've got idear for idea right up at the top of the post. Because I know it'll annoy you when you spot it.

Yesterday's first haiku was intended as a reflection on how things can go wrong if you do your own dentistry because you can't get to a dentist. Probably rather ambitious to squeeze into a haiku!

So, to today's poem:

Lonely and dreaming of the west coast,
Sat in a hotel room for two,
Wondering what to do.
Staring outside, watching neon signs flicker,
My hand falls away from the bottle of liquor,
And I raise you a heartfelt toast.

But I'll never be brave and I'll never be strong,
I'll pack up my bags and go back to the man,
Who makes me miserable because he can,
I've been waiting for you for too long.

Marc said...

I'm not seeing the extra syllable in the line you mentioned, but I do understand your point on the 'does' - that was one of those 'thinking, thinking, thinking... screw it, it'll do' moments.

The idear was intentional - sometimes I like to spell and pronounce it like that. I'm pretty sure it's my sister Sue's fault.

And... oh, I see now. I was just looking at it wrong. Very ambitious, but you managed it well!

I liked your second stanza in particular. The 'because he can' line is very poignant.