On the off chance you couldn’t tell, I wrote the poem from that last post. It’s an excerpt from an email that I wrote to Jeni and, I think with the exception of haikus or limericks, is my first real attempt at poetry. I’ve written plenty of songs before, but not poetry. Of course I realize, as Jeni quickly pointed out, that poems are merely music-less lyrics. That’s not the way my mind views it, though. Writing lyrics, at least in my mind, is far easier than writing poetry.
When I think of writing lyrics, it is usually with some sort of melody in mind. Either the words find the music, or the music finds the words. In either case, they are entwined together like two romantic lovers. With poetry, however, there’s nothing to link to the words. They stand alone. They live or die on their own. Perhaps I’m just not thinking of poetry with the proper frame of mind. I simply feel that my words are trite. At least as lyrics, the simplest words or a trite expression can be salvaged with a catchy hook or an amazing riff. They can be made more as a chorus with the music behind them elevating them higher than they could ever go on their own. Look at many rock songs and you’ll find a simplistic phrase or even a tired cliche and they soar with the proper music behind them.
It seems there are some people firmly ensconced on either side of the debate, but more often than not, many more say some lyrics are poetry and some poetry can be lyrics (with music, naturally). Does anyone have any song lyrics they find quite poetic or poems they feel could be readily turned into lyrics? I will go first if that helps. From the song Warm Wet Circles:
On promenades where drunks propose to lonely arcade mannequins
Where ceremonies pause at the jeweler’s shop display
Feigning casual silence in strained romantic interludes
Till they commit themselves to the muted journey home
And the pool player rests on another cue
Last nights hero picking up his dues
A honeymoon gambled on a ricochet
She’s staring at the brochures at the holidays
Chalking up a name in your hometown
Standing all your mates to another round
Laughing at the world till the barman wipes away the warm wet circles
The warm wet circles
I saw teenage girls like gaudy moths
A classroom’s shabby butterflies
Flirt in the glow of stranded telephone boxes
Planning white lace weddings from smeared hearts and token proclamations
Rolled from stolen lipsticks across the razored webs of glass
Sharing cigarettes with experience with her giggling jealous confidantes
She faithfully traces his name with quick bitten fingernails
Through the tears of condensation that’ll cry through the night
As the glancing headlights of the last bus kiss adolescence goodbye
In a warm wet circle
Like a mothers kiss on your first broken heart, a warm wet circle
Like a bullet hole in Central Park, a warm wet circle
And I’ll always surrender to the warm wet circles
She nervously undressed in the dancing beams of the Fidra lighthouse
Giving it all away before it’s too late
She’ll let a lovers tongue move in a warm wet circle
Giving it all away and showing no shame
She’ll take a mother’s kiss on her first broken heart a warm wet circle
She’ll realise that she played her part in a warm wet circle
It was a wedding ring
Destined to be found in a cheap hotel
Lost in a kitchen sink or thrown in a wishing well
