Monday 28 April 2008

Son of the Song

______

This is one of the poems I will be submitting for my poetry assessment this year. It started off as an exercise in free-writing whilst listening to Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (I think this is actually my favourite record of all time. Buyitbuyitbuyit!), which turned into a half-decent poem. I think it is about music's power to save you, particularly from dark places in your life; depression and the like. This may just be the highly pretentious explanation I'll use in the obligatory critical commentary, however...
______

The bleak hum of time blocks my ears
To the intense ticking of life.
I don’t know it, I can’t feel it,
But it is there.

I hang, head down, not even awake.
Is it bright beyond, or a beauteous barren black?
A fist around my wrist hangs me,
Gently rocking me to my sense.
I grab hold of a sound,
Distant yet corporeal,
With both hands.
Life flows into my muscles,
Giving me the strength to pull myself up.
I hear my heart thud rhythmically like a bass drum.
Something whispers incoherently.

I stand and lean into the wind,
And the world rolls free from my shoulders.
My head lifts, my neck straightens.
Life flickers in, no longer blocked out.

No comments: