The exercise:
I think it's time to pull out the Random CD exercise. So go find a random song and use the first line as yours, either in poetry or prose.
Mine:
Dixie Chicks - Favorite Year
We were young and so inspired;
We would drive and talk all night
And we would never get tired.
We always fought the good fight,
At least that's what we were told
When we spoke by candlelight.
But now we're not quite so bold,
We just don't want to get fired -
When did we become so old?
4 comments:
Bittersweet. Rather nice actually, given that it's 5am and it's raining outside :) I really like the second stanza in particular. (By the way, I do enjoy this exercise! It's always a good excuse to see what obscure stuff I've managed to collect.)
Mine is First we take Manhattan by Leonard Cohen:
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom,
They ordered me to break rocks with my hands,
They stood a guard to watch me labour,
To make sure I obeyed commands.
They couldn't bind my mind with chains of iron,
They couldn't stop my thoughts from flying free,
They might have worked me half to death,
But that was only ever me physically.
Ooo! Cool idea! I had some impressions from my last visit to one of the galleries knocking about in my notebook so I had a purpose for them with the song title 23am.
At 23am,
the reflection in bathroom mirror
is not your own.
Red flannel robe of knowledge
tightly tied around the waist,
the masterwork
no longer a secret.
Torn painting still framed
silence whispers
between static images.
How many times did God begin?
Water splashed to freshen face,
baptismal blessings. No more sin
beats my soul
in phantasmic endemic dreams.
At 23am,
is your reflection painted too?
A bit archaic, but my bit's inspired by John Dowland's "In Darkness Let Me Dwell." Dowland, in case you're curious, was a contemporary of Shakespeare and with releasing songbooks of his compositions and going around Europe to perform essentially amounted to being one of Britain's first pop stars.
- - - - -
In darkness, let me dwell
In midnight black, let me stay.
The light, it mocks me
The day, it offends me.
The truth lies in light,
so they say.
Light, as truth,
ha!
Light may scatter dark,
for a time,
but what ultimately begins the day,
and what ends it?
The shadows keep my only councel,
they don't share willy-nilly.
They see no need
to show things as they're not
The day, it offends me
The light, it mocks me
In midnight black, let me stay
In darkness, let me dwell.
- - - - -
No, I'm not in a bad mood, but it probably didn't help matters that I was just working on my prosody paper outline, in which I've to analyze the poem "Richard Cory." It's not exactly the happiest of poems, as most academically-favored poems seem to be.
Greg - yeah, me too. This one was actually inspired by my digging through my CD collection and encountering a bunch of good stuff I hadn't listened to in a while.
Excellent song choice, and I couldn't help but read that in Cohen's voice. It fit perfectly.
Tristan - I really liked the splashing water/baptismal connection and that last line is excellent.
Glad you liked this exercise :)
g2 - a history lesson and an excellent poem? You spoiled me today!
I particularly liked the way you tied the start and ending together. Nicely done :)
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