Borrow a Song Lyric Poem

Neonurotic

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Apr 22, 2011
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This is a challenge

Yes, I know you really can't "borrow" a lyric per se, but you can certainly use it for inspiration in writing a poem. And here is the challenge for this thread: use one line of lyrics from a song to write your poem.

Rules (yes there are always rules poetry challenges):
:: 1 line of lyric per poem to make up your poem.

:: You must quote the lyric as the artist(s) intended; not what you think it is.

:: You must give credit to the song and musician/band before or after your poem.

:: A link to the song is not required, but I bet others will be interested in the song that inspired you, especially if you found video from Youtube.​
And that's it, have fun!



** To keep it all about the poems, please limit comments in Remec's thread: Borrow a Song Lyric Companion thread. Thanks!
 
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yay! i'm in (still need to do tods' road-trippin' one but i'm in)
 
Yukiko

that if you couldn’t even lie anymore
living on would be impossible
so we communicate from different worlds
you in your hermetic techno dreamworld
I from down on the street

in Starbucks in Harajuku
we were enemy agents at a meet
your disguise, a cappuccino foam moustache
I shaved with my razor tongue
forward planning on which you frowned

your languid neck, a vulnerable exposure
a strained and delicate isthmus
on which your head hung as if too weighty
now I understand how the nape of the neck
is like an exposed ankle to a Victorian gentleman

so forgive me for adding to your lies
I shrink in fear of unpleasant feelings
but if lying is the key to your door I’ll lie some more
that if I had to tell the truth
living on would be impossible



Yui To Mother

Because you told me
Teary voiced looking away

That if you couldn’t even lie anymore
Living on would not be possible

Since you wanted to be loved
You kept on laughing
Through any hardship

Sadness is something
I could endure
If I were alone

Kindness is so
Cruel, Isn’t it?

Even your heart
Becomes confused

I want (us) to be together forever but
Things I don’t like about you seem to
Increase by each passing day

We’re like-minded, aren’t we?
I feel like I understand

I have someone I can love now
If that day were ever to come
I wonder if I could change

Happiness is…
Although it doesn’t
Shine like magic

Isn’t hatred
Just a slight misunderstanding?
Please don’t cry

Mere fate
Is something you can change
Crying into the night as I ran from the house

And in that secluded park bench
I waited for you to come pick me up

Sadness is a thing
If snuggled together,
A thing of great warmth

Kindness is
If it’s close to you
Its taken advantage of

Hey…
I’m happy
Probably
Because

I had you
With me
 

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Rock and Rolling*

Downtown streetlamps moonlight shadow
shuttered banks and candy shops
the measured pavement tires crawling

the avenue neon blinking stop go and
oh my soul the radio the radio the dj
is a nightingale, the shake, the shook, the quake

of thudding rock and roll, the Dog, the Slop,
the Chez Vous Walk the bass the beat fingers
on the wheel eyes in the street the pulse

and thrill of parking lots the dark refuge
of Bowman's Hill and all those steamy kisses
were amour mama not cheap display.



"Amour mama not cheap display"
In France They Kiss on Main Street
Joni Mitchell
 
Oh Jazzonia that long-headed man
curved on the night swings on
the moon and smooths it out slow

paints it blue and gold a long flash
that jumps and calls a bumpity rill
piano cakewalk down and down

town baby the city rolls we finger
snap and pat the beat to hurry
midnight dreamstreet honey warm--
Daddy plays the horn.

Daddy Plays The Horn
Dexter Gordon
 
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The Magic Of A Moment

I marvelled as I beheld
that moment in a hurricane
A man stood in a space
where no one should be
another climbed a wall
of kaleidoscopic graffiti

yet barren to the east
and I heard the chant begin
"Tear down this wall!"

Like a stormwind that will ring
the freedom bell


the image blew across the cheek
of the marksman before
his finger squeezed
the trigger and froze him fast
in that December moment
on a glory night that I believed
we'd never see

The Scorpions Winds Of Change Click on the photos to be taken to a clip of Reagans speech at the Brandenburg Gate and to a video of the song.
 
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From Souad Massi's song Yemma

the welfare is poured from the skies
and yet there are those who sleep in the street

the capitalist would say
they’re destroying their profits
when it is they who are stealing their beds
selling them on the open market
where souls are transferred
for pounds, dollars, euros and yen

these capitalists who claim god’s thoughts
these capitalists who claim freedom
these capitalist who put people on the streets
where welfare shall pour from the skies
enriching the poor and the defeated
who were sold on the open market
who are surplus population
who have freedom to sleep in the cold

the surplus profit from their labour
is not surplus profit enough
for capitslists to share their exploited profit
and fill the bellies of the surplus population
who are a payday away from the street
outside there is welfare falling from the skies
the poor are reaping god’s love
in the cold and bitter streets

the skyscrapers block out the sun
the corporations block out the heart
the capitalists are counting the tax payers welfare
which kept them off the streets
but there’s no taxpayer to save the homeless and defeated
who are being showered by god’s welfare
falling from the winter skies
they are just surplus population
 
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Puff the Magic dragon lived by the sea
and hovered o'er the foaming spume when he had a pee.
Little Jackie paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him sticks of dynamite and other fancy stuff.
 
Puff the Magic dragon lived by the sea
and hovered o'er the foaming spume when he had a pee.
Little Jackie paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him sticks of dynamite and other fancy stuff.

Haha... that's all I got to say besides this. :rose:
 
The Beatles (Lennon) - Across The Universe




NO CHANGE


Nothing's gonna change my world
as the future will unfold,

I will change myself in need,
that is how it will appear,
change my face, soul and creed,
all in automatic gear.

Saying "yes" but meaning "no",
saying "good" but meaning "bad",
so that nobody can know,
for which policies I stand.

Let Big Brother do his spying,
I will be like a blank wall,
so that everyone can write his own graffiti,
anyhow, this world is dying
for it could not change at all,
it's no wonder with so many humans witty.


Edited for adding two lines.
 
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Even here, even now
I remember the churchyard
at midnight
Two bottles of beer
and the oak branches
full of wispy moon.
We laughed just because
the light still yellowed
a priest's prayer from
a window so prison
to our fancy.
I remember the waffle house
you peeing, leaning
against my leg,
the crumpled maps
lousy coffee, dirty bathrooms
and the wrecks
along the way.
And here among the ethereal
shadows dancing in my mind
I sing this whisper~
Hold me closer, tiny dancer,
count the headlights
on the highway
but you aren't here
among the shadows
remembering.
Bernie taupin/elton john
 
One Question Remains

Trees laughed in our wake
as you picked clean
their bones
acorns, twigs, and
broken pine cones.
Who knew
rivers giggle
belly up to your ride
down it's muddy slick slope
on a wild ass slide.
That afternoon nap
in the shade near
the shore
of that lazy drunk lake
nameless and poor.
Buried in these memories
to fester and burn
thorn to the shrapnel
the page I can't turn
is the question unanswered
just after the fall
Why'd you say Hallelujah,
if it meant nothing to ya?
Why'd you sing to me
at all?
*damien rice~delicate*
 
Hard Ridden

Life goes easy on me
most of the time
or maybe it's just that
I usually don't mind
the hard ride
knowing it's just as tough
on the other side
of the saddle
when a sudden stop
could mean a painful fall
and the reigns we drop
mean nothing at all
for we can't set free
what we've never owned
and if we can't be
comfortable alone
there is no such place
as home

Damian Rice, The Blower's Daughter
 
Where You Been Ain't Where I'm Going
Bonnie Raitt, Ain't Gonna Let You

Met you going the wrong way,
on a one way street, heads down
never saw it coming
you knocked me off my feet
got tangled in my bags,
offered to help carry my things
followed me home
decided to stay a while
whittling away the time
hoping to find meaning
shaping your life to mine
but you never could
'cause you never would
let go of where you been
an' I couldn't wait for you
to be ready to move on
said it ain't where you was going
but love, you're only ever
going backward and that
don't get you nowhere
 
Unvarnished Truth
Alison Krauss, It Don't Matter Now

You've finally come
Roses bleeding in your
White knuckled hands
You open your mouth
I can smell it before you speak
Is that sorry on your breath
Well you can hold it
Until you're as blue
As you've stained me
Flowers and apologies
Won't put a varnish
On my broken empty chest
There's no shine
Left in my eyes
Only the dull ache
Of too many goodbyes
 
The Angel From Montgomery

I met you on a midway
at a fair last June
not at the corndog stand
but behind the tent
showin off
a new tattoo.
I must've been a sight,
my armload of bears
and balloons won for
the cotton candy queen
left behind
at the ferris wheel.
Should we bet on some horses?
Shoot out the lights?
You laughed
like a devil wearing wings
~caught cheating once
or twice.
I never knew your name
which I guess
was part of the game
but I knew the thrill
of that one ride gone wild
the magic of
your crooked smile
and where you said
you'd be tonight
streetlights are all
that I see.
*bonnie raitt composite*
 
Hide and Seek
Alana Davis, Murder

I can't run any further
and I can't hide any more
I forgot what I'm running from
or what I'm running toward
It's time and past
to step out of the shadows
that I've been afraid to cast
box up the all the useless crap
that's been holding me here
killing me softly
with it's siren's song
of someone else's dream
That girl is long gone
dead and buried
a murder suicide pact
with herself
I think I'll finally
let her rest in peace
 
Light Stepping

I was there for you in your darkest times,
I was there for you in your darkest nights
holding your head and your heart
then you did the same for me.

A serenity prayer on your lips
and praise in your eyes
was all I needed to keep on keeping.

I threw away the pills that held
me together and let you do
what the anti-this n' that did,
but you've been better. I'm one step
after the other, feeling lighter than ever.



"I was there for you in your darkest times,
I was there for you in your darkest nights"
Maps by Maroon 5
 
Mudslide

It's monsoons again, black skies and rain,
raining sideways, flash flood
a river of mud and silt. Red like
rust, an eroding skeleton of what
used to be, but in reality never was.

I kick through the pathless pools,
miss the foot holds and fall with
the slide. I believed you when you
said you loved me. But you lied.

The unrequited is a slice of sun through
the clouds after a storm, a spotlight on pain.




"I believed you when said you loved me"
Black Flowers by Chris Isaak
 
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Seventeen

Nineteen sixty nine,
seventeen – eighteen
next month and the
country I was born in,
but have lived outside
of for thirteen years
commands that I
register to bet
my life.

I comply but only
after signing other
forms to become
a citizen of my
adopted land.

Better odds
better life.


Summer Wages - Ian Tyson
 
Letters to You


All my letters
forming every word
in every phrase
that lays me open on the page
are for you

I wrote 'em all out in ink and blood
scrawling love and loss
ache and fear
for your heart to read

even the ones you'll never see

Maybe I shouldn't write out loud
how it all sings your name
but it's always there
in all these lines
when you want to listen
for things I can't say





"I wrote 'em all out in ink and blood"
Letter to You by Bruce Springsteen
 
All we can hope for is a light.

Even prior to
our being able to

register or
measure it,

oblivious to
the shadows we cast,

before ever the
first eye opened

we were drawn
without understanding.

What else do we move toward?




All we can hope for is a light
Black Tiles by Wild Flag
 
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