the freedom of being locked inside
all the space within to hide
stone and steel is all i feel
these scribbled words tell my truth
for my world is just a square
pick me a flower from out there
a beautiful smile
i can see a beaten man with a beautiful smile
the days pass with regret
the nights with vows unkept
heaven knows its all too real
i would cry if i could feel
as i breathe one last hopeless sigh
the hourglass stands as time pass by
a beautiful smile
i can see a beaten man with a beautiful smile
i will let my last words pass
to shelter my outside mask
but i can see at the end of the mile
a beaten man with a beautiful smile
Author's note: This was written in 2002 (i think) as lyrics to a song i wrote. A certain band whose members are now a part of Them Clones recorded it, much to my dissatisfaction with the outcome. The tune was too peppy for a supposed sad song (a twist beat ala the one in "That Thing You Do" so you can imagine). I have never been able to rewrite the music to my liking, so I have kept this lying about unused, unknown. Even though I know this is far from my best, i have always had a deep connection to it somehow.
I want the reader to know that I purposely do not label my verses "poetry" and will refer to them as lyrics or verses.
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Hmmm since it rhymes, it would make a neat rap song. But that wouldn't be any better than the peppy version though.
ReplyDeleteAnd ah, I'll stick my head out and say that while I know you don't claim this to be poetry but lyrics to a song, I hate rhymes. Argh.
i like rhymes as long as they are not too contrived (i can't say the same for this particular piece myself). for me it takes great skill to master the art of rhyming in any literary composition. i guess that is why i hate reading experimental poetry which does not have any detectable peculiar rhythm to it.
ReplyDeleteYou do have a point there, good poetry should have a cadence, though I still maintain preferably not from rhyme which is so childlike really. And I'm a big admirer of experimental poetry which explores the use of words apart from the conventional. This is why I keep wishing Mizo poetry would shake off the Victorian hangover and try newer modes of expression.
ReplyDeleteyes rhymes, especially couplets can get childish and trivial if you overuse them. but i would not degrade the form for being what it is. it would be blasphemous if i claimed any hack writer who uses blank verse is superior to shakespeare, wyatt, pope or milton who used the rhyme-scheme. nowadays, i feel experimentation does not serve the function it did when unconventional poems appeared. they are very much the norm... but not everyone can be emily dickinson. having said that, I agree about finding newer modes of expression but only to the extent that they are meaningful, inventive than being obscure just for the sake of being unconventional. Not every act of gratituous weirdness merits commendation, for me.
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