Best Poetry that happen to be Lyrics
Steve Cutchen
Read as poetry, these are awesome. Don't even need music:
PATTERNS
The night sets softly with the hush of falling leaves,
Casting shivering shadows on the houses through the trees,
And the light from a street lamp paints a pattern on my wall,
Like the pieces of a puzzle or a child's uneven scrawl.
Up a narrow flight of stairs in a narrow little room,
As I lie upon my bed in the early evening gloom.
Impaled on my wall my eyes can dimly see
The pattern of my life and the puzzle that is me.
From the moment of my birth to the instant of my death,
There are patterns I must follow just as I must breathe each breath.
Like a rat in a maze the path before me lies,
And the pattern never alters until the rat dies.
And the pattern still remains on the wall where darkness fell,
And it's fitting that it should, for in darkness I must dwell.
Like the color of my skin, or the day that I grow old,
My life is made of patterns that can scarcely be controlled.
DANGLING CONVERSATION
Its a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee.
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore.
You can hear the ocean roar.
In the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost.
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time.
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.
Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me.
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.
A POEM ON THE UNDERGROUND WALL
The last train is nearly due,
The underground is closing soon.
And in the dark deserted station,
Restless in anticipation,
A man waits in the shadows.
His restless eyes leap and scratch,
At all that they can touch or catch.
And hidden deep within his pocket,
Safe within it's silent socket,
He holds a colored crayon.
Now from the tunnel's stony womb,
The carriage rides to meet the groom,
And opens wide and welcome doors,
But he hesitates, then withdraws
Deeper in the shadows.
And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany,
And he holds his crayon rosary
Tighter in his hand.
Now from his pocket quick he flashes,
The crayon on the wall he slashes,
Deep upon the advertising,
A single worded poem comprised
Of four letters.
And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding
The poem across the tracks rebounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight
To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night.
Zaphod Beeblebrox
His stuff IS taught as poetry in many English classes.
And yeah it's a top-poast - so sue me.
--
I'm so hip I have trouble seeing over my pelvis.
I'm so cool you can keep a side of meat in me for months.
Jeffrey Davis
Some songs for your consideration
"Nadine", "Sweet Little 16", "Promised Land" by Chuck Berry
"Louisiana 1927", "Jolly Coppers on Parade" by Randy Newman
"Concrete and Barbed Wire","Greenville","Too Cool 2 Be Forgotten" by
Lucinda Williams
"Hallelujah", "Bird on a Wire", "Chelsea Hotel" by Leonard Cohen
"It'll Come to You","Woman Sawed in Half" John Hiatt
"Song for Sonny Liston","Ragpickers Dream"
Hiatt's our real poet of guilt and personal responsibilty. As serious a
moralist as there is in music.
Lucinda Williams uses other's language to give voice to an underclass
that's voiceless, and by doing that discovers her own voice. A beatnik
poet of the 1st class.
Knopfler is our romantic revolutionary, hoping to beguile his audience
like Chopin into seeing things a new way.
Cohen is the voice of loneliness, talking to that he'll have someone to
talk to.
Berry is Brer Rabbit. Again. Setting up a scrim of cheerfulness between
his subject and his surface. Sometimes, as in Nadine, he surprises
himself. "She moves around like a wayward summer breeze" could have come
from Andrew Marvell.
Newman is a literary gent, trying his hand at voices and themes. Here he
absolutely nails the Southern culture of grievance in "Louisiana 1927"
and in "Jolly Coppers" he adds a lyric to Blake's "Songs of Innocence".
Randolph M. Jones
> I submit Paul Simon from his Garfunkel years
>
> Read as poetry, these are awesome. Don't even need music:
When you're right you're right, but I think you left out one of the most
poem-like...
The last train is nearly due,
The underground is closing soon,
And in the dark deserted station,
Restless in anticipation,
A man waits in the shadows.
His restless eyes leap and scratch,
At all that they can touch or catch,
And hidden deep within his pocket,
Safe within its silent socket,
Frisbee®
news:F92dneGeeL_GiyPY...@gwi.net...
Nearly thirty years ago when I was in cowledge, I was shocked to see Lenon &
McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby" in a book of poetry.
deb.r...@gmail.com
In the ironbound section near Avenue L
where the Portuguese women come to see what you sell
the clouds so low the morning so slow
as the wires cut through the sky
The beams and bridges cut the light on the ground
into little triangles and the rails run round
through the rust and the heat
the light and sweet coffee color of her skin
Bound up in wire and fate
watching her walk him up to the gate
in front of the ironbound school yard.
Kids will grow like weeds on a fence
She says they look for the light they try to make sense.
They come up through the cracks
Like grass on the tracks
She touches him goodbye.
Steps off the curb and into the street
the blood and feathers near her feet
into the ironbound market
In the ironbound section near Avenue L
where the Portuguese women come to see what you sell
the clouds so low the morning so slow
as the wires cut through the sky
She stops at the stall
fingers the ring
opens her purse
feels a longing
away from the ironbound border
" Fancy poulty parts sold here.
Breasts and thighs and hearts.
Backs are cheap and wings are nearly free.
Nearly free"
Mackerel Snapping Anarchist
> Steve Cutchen wrote:
> > I submit Paul Simon from his Garfunkel years
> >
> > Read as poetry, these are awesome. Don't even need music:
>
> When you're right you're right, but I think you left out one of the most
> poem-like...
>
ummm... dood? RIF
--
TO
"Notre Dame got away. They had em by the throat, and instead of cutting
it real deep and watching the blood squirt all over, you let em get to
halftime so fatboy can feed em pudding."- Mike Valenti
Randolph M. Jones
> "Randolph M. Jones" chose..... poorly
>> Steve Cutchen wrote:
>>> I submit Paul Simon from his Garfunkel years
>>>
>>> Read as poetry, these are awesome. Don't even need music:
>> When you're right you're right, but I think you left out one of the most
>> poem-like...
>>
>
>
> ummm... dood? RIF
>
Hmm? I'm afraid I'll need some amplifying information on this one.
Mackerel Snapping Anarchist
Next time, read the whole thing before critiquing.
(or should I maybe follow this advice?)
Randolph M. Jones
> "Randolph M. Jones" chose..... poorly
>> Mackerel Snapping Anarchist wrote:
>>> "Randolph M. Jones" chose..... poorly
>>>> Steve Cutchen wrote:
>>>>> I submit Paul Simon from his Garfunkel years
>>>>>
>>>>> Read as poetry, these are awesome. Don't even need music:
>>>> When you're right you're right, but I think you left out one of the most
>>>> poem-like...
>>>>
>>>
>>> ummm... dood? RIF
>>>
>> Hmm? I'm afraid I'll need some amplifying information on this one.
>
> As I look at his post... he includes that which you say he left out.
> Next time, read the whole thing before critiquing.
>
> (or should I maybe follow this advice?)
>
Maybe you should :-). He included two of Simon's more poetic pieces. I
was adding in a third that I thought should be included.
Randolph M. Jones
...except that now that I look again you are right and I am wrong.
Carry on.