I: Overture
Imagine, then, if it strikes your fancy:
The anxious prestidigitations on a flute's keys,
Valves on a trumpet here, the final tuning of the snare there,
A lone violin begins to sing concert C...
And the rest of the pit hums along.
The whimsy of clarinets and oboes
Running scales,
Harp strings tinge well-practiced nails.
See, I wasn't always like this:
What with the scars on my face
That I cut myself,
The jitters in my mannerisms
Resulting from a heroin addiction
I only acquired here.
I seem to recall being quite another being,
Someone not so disposed to accept
Greasy violations...
The things I've been forced to take for more horse.
Yeah, I was someone, once.
II: Allegretto
See, there was a time
When I really meant to contribute,
To be a screeching lamb
Trotting to the slaughterhouse.
I did well in school,
On my way to some top-shelf, out-of-state college,
Ready to become yet another number.
Hear how the bassoon flirts with the melody?
Nice.
And here I am, a number after all,
Being too fat, being too lean, being too short, being too tall--
Being me was having too much gall.
The French horns really kick in here, wait for it...
Oh, yes.
III: Adagio, ma non troppo
I tried something,
Crossed some vague, indefatigable line
By breathing when I should not have
Inhaled.
And, no, nothing in the world failed...
The universe did not collapse into itself...
No Virgin Mary over-fried her insidious face upon a tortilla:
Nothing happened.
Consider the pianissimo tremolo in the high strings here...
Mmm.
Okay, nothing happened,
But here we sit:
You in your tailored dress,
And I in an orange jumpsuit.
IV.i: Scherzo
Am I a murderer?
No.
Could I become one?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
No.
What did I do?
What could I do
If I were not here?
IV.ii: Trio
Nothing but be the same old person I was before,
Back when I was content to be another screeching lamb.
I hurt no one, and yet became no one, for doing nothing.
IV.iii: Scherzo (reprise)
Am I a criminal?
Yes.
Should I be a criminal?
I don't think so.
Anyone with half a brain could tell you so!
What I did
Should not bring
A ridiculous sentence.
Contrabassi, gallows humour,
Ostinato.
V: Vivace
So I was imprisoned
For having a bag of weed in my pocket...
The War on Drugs™ is really winning here.--
But what they don't get,
What they can't seem to get
Or what they don't want to get
Is this:
Before I was here, I only smoked grass,
But now YOU have fed
The lucrative hard drugs market
You purport to eliminate:
I'd never have started taking this other crap
If I hadn't been here.
VI: Coda
Or was that the point?
Who are YOU, really?
What do you gain by turning ordinary folks into junkies
While stating the opposite?
The last note of the orchestra drowns in the applause of the house.
What is the crazy?
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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intense
"I seem to recall being quite another being"
I love this line! This line alone could sum up most personal poetry.
The musical parallels are an enjoyable union that made this flow quickly to me.
I am often amazed at what inspires a writer to pick up his pen and apply his craft. This one too has me scratching my head concerning what must have inspired it.
I must admit that I dislike the undertones of being turned into something else simply by being incarserated because it removes personal responsibility from the equation.
Other than that I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
Well done.
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I wouldn't say it removes it, but at what point do we wake up and realise that all we're doing by incarcerating people for minor and meaningless bullshit is actually creating a market for the harder stuff, a market that wouldn't exist otherwise? I mean, if you want to talk about irresponsible, how about the irresponsibility in that?
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I see this as two fold...
actually three..
the world of the addicted...
the second as the self appointed victim
the third ...
from the eyes of musical composition ... almost as if they were dreaming in classical reaches.
Interesting perspectives!
Keep penning one stroke at a time!
Bill
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I can't answer your question. On any day, I could be locked up too, for the same reason, and turned into a something else.
I loved your poem for the marriage to music, and the different parts of the composition bringing out the different thoughts of the prisoner. The only way the narrator's voice approached inauthenticity was in the ability to continue to express complex ideas in the coda. By then, he would maybe be inarticulate, and uncaring about whether anyone else saw the hypocrisy inherent in this situation.
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Unlike Bo - I read the whole thing. I like it. It jumps about like an addict would - the words fall fast like a junkie trying to score - racing to get to the drugs. I like the last two sections - 'Before I was here I only smoked grass. I wonder at the number of people that holds true for.
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Actually that was more like just a quarter of the way I got through it, before scrolling to the end.
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Yeah good, much more poetic than me, but it is WAY too long.
I only got through nearly a half of it. When you're writing? never forget the scroll button, my friend.
It was a nice unambigous meaning, which I like, and much more poetic than me...
...if you were wondering mate? If I have a difficult idea to express? then it is most poetic, when it is said the most bluntly obvious way I can imagine...
You would be surprised Gio, how an extremely complex idea can not need anywhere near as many words to say, as you thought. The simpler the better I say, but that is just me, because of the kind of poetry I write.
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