Monday January 4th, 2010

The exercise:

As I've been going through my old posts to label the prompts I've come across a few that I wanted to make use of again. So I'm getting started today with my favorite one: the random CD prompt.

Here's how it works: grab a CD at random and pick a track, or flip through the play list on your iPod (or whatever) to find a random track, and then use the very first line of your song as the first line of your poetry or prose. Then just go wherever it takes you (and let us know which song you used!).

Oh, before I forget again, I wanted to mention one last Christmas gift I received. My parents got me a gift certificate for MEC and Kat and I went on Saturday to use it on these snowshoes. She picked up a pair for herself and we can't wait to get back up to the mountains for fun like this:


Alright, now you can go write.

Mine:


Night swimming deserves a quiet night
In mid-summer with stars shining bright,
A lake rippling with lazy strokes,
And a breeze that carries campfire smoke.

Life in the city can get crowded;
It's easy for sight to get clouded.
But in the silence of the country
There is room to be, room to see.

Thoughts grow still and breath begins to slow,
When you have nowhere you need to go.
So find the time to go night swimming,
And see life without all the trimmings.

4 comments:

Greg said...

It occurred to me before Christmas that you'd not done a random-CD/favourite song prompt in a while, so I'm pleased to see its return! I like the picture, and the snowshoes look like fun :)
I think I like the first verse of your poem best as the second verse has a tiny hint of cliche hanging about it that the first avoids rather well, and the third doesn't carry quite the emotional weight of the first.
Tempted as I was to pick Lady Gaga (knowing your feelings here!), I've gone with Taylor Swift (the Digital Dog remix) and Love Story:

Love Story

We were both young when I first saw you,
And not much older when you passed,
And though I was only a child then,
I'd still thought that this would last.
I was, for the next few years,
Somehow peripherally aware,
That you'd never actually left me:
When I looked for you, you'd be there.
And so I grew up, with a ghost around.
Our love had a chance to bloom.
Now, at eighteen, I know I can't leave you,
I'm choosing to share your doom.

Marc said...

Yeah, sometimes it's good to bring the old ones back 'round again :)

Re: your thoughts on my poem. Agreed, agreed, and agreed. I was in a rush to get it done so that I could work on AFC and it shows.

Thank you for showing some restraint with your musical selection :)

A tragically sweet poem, I think I like the middle bit the best.

Glorya said...

"Crooked Teeth", by Death Cab For Cutie [amazling band!]

It was a hundred degrees
And the floor beneath
Cracked with the heat
From the frenzied friction
Of dance shoes in motion
To the music of pop fiction.


This is FUN! I should have come over to your site sooner, Eloo! :D

Glorya said...
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