Creative Writing [was: Poetry & Lyrics]

[No Forever]
The incomplete and crooked
Surface of my soul
Ignites the tragedy
And the chipped tooth
Of all my lovers and their gods;
How I can’t hold steady
The bells of my gut.

Her name was Eleanor Price
And you know nothing about her,
But when she was 17
She was trampled to death
In Yankee Stadium.

Somewhere beneath a bridge
A man crosses the street
Like some phantom of my heroes
With their fabricated failures of elation;
The echoes of the shadow in front of me
And how they compose themselves like spackling
On the rotting walls of my bones.
It’s this loud and unsettling circus
That kills me every night,
It’s the string between
My liver and love
That’s slowly coming unwound.

This is me digging my own grave
But mistaking it for a foxhole:
The shovel that I dig with
Treats me better than anyone else,
And the dirty that I cough on
Knows me better than myself.

Her name was Eleanor Price
And she means nothing now.

fuck. i like how you draw upon historical tragedies for this really personal poetry.
that long middle stanza kills it

The Poet Jonah wrote:

[The Judge]
On West 45th Street
The fallen lord of those fenced up
Troubled gardens of my youth
Climbs into a taxi
To be baptized for Pluto,
Making himself invisible
In the rocking chair back porch
Of my stubborn idled mind;
God’s inside joke.

There he waits with hesitant ambition
For the unwanted unwinding backwash
Of the aching concrete city in my bones,

With selfish Sally Lou distilled
And my letters to Stella in the fireplace
I am alone and lost in the trees
Between a storm brewing
Patiently in the distance
Where the pit of my stomach works
In mysterious ways,
And a beach in the pacific
Where the ocean doesn’t end
And God is nothing but a lobster
Whose words are forgotten by the end of the day.

And this one is really damn good as well. Kind of a juxtaposition between the fantastic and the mortal and realistic
it's a shame

Cody, those poems are brilliant. I really don't know how you do it. The mix of pain and beauty in your words is fantastic, and when you add in the elements of history and religion, it just takes it over the top.

Quote :

Making himself invisible
In the rocking chair back porch
Of my stubborn idled mind;
God’s inside joke.

This is my favorite part of "The Judge". Those last two lines just kill me.

Quote :

This is me digging my own grave
But mistaking it for a foxhole:
The shovel that I dig with
Treats me better than anyone else,
And the dirty that I cough on
Knows me better than myself.

This stanza really stood out to me in "No Forever". I have been in that place before and I hope I never go back. I hope you never stop writing, because you have a ton of talent and your poetry is so unique and heartfelt. I'm really glad you shared these with us.

The Poet Jonah wrote:

[No Forever]
The incomplete and crooked
Surface of my soul
Ignites the tragedy
And the chipped tooth
Of all my lovers and their gods;
How I can’t hold steady
The bells of my gut.

Her name was Eleanor Price
And you know nothing about her,
But when she was 17
She was trampled to death
In Yankee Stadium.

Somewhere beneath a bridge
A man crosses the street
Like some phantom of my heroes
With their fabricated failures of elation;
The echoes of the shadow in front of me
And how they compose themselves like spackling
On the rotting walls of my bones.
It’s this loud and unsettling circus
That kills me every night,
It’s the string between
My liver and love
That’s slowly coming unwound.

This is me digging my own grave
But mistaking it for a foxhole:
The shovel that I dig with
Treats me better than anyone else,
And the dirty that I cough on
Knows me better than myself.

Her name was Eleanor Price
And she means nothing now.

BANG! ...

ya see it ?!
you hit me really hard. even my english isn't that good and i nearly understood have of this i got such a deep kick! in my head and in my stomach - cause those lines are incredible fantastic! melanchlia, i love you

Something I plan to work with somehow


the Ghosts of this town, keep dragging me down
Forcing my hand, to come back around

I'' be down by the river casting your letters out to someone else. Driving home
I may just forget you, or you will consume my heart

[Fasting for Bread]
A washed up boxer
Drew a monster
On the pit of my stomach
And I mistook it for a map;
The dots between Jerusalem
And the streets of Detroit.

With the winter-sprung fabric
Of the enduring ocean’s surface
That sits settled in my spirit
Trembling excited at the smell of fall,
I have prepared the structure of my joints
For the selfish gates of The Rouge.

Arise, prisoners of starvation!
Arise and give your lives for the union.

Been away for a while and kinda started writing a few things again lately.

Ólta X18

Seeing things I want to see and
saying things I don't want to say.
It's too obvious.
At least I thought it was.
I guess it is now,
Anyway.
Burning bridges before they've been crossed,
Or even appeared on the map?
Not making progress,
Just a fool of myself.
Why can't we just be two other people?
Why can't we just be two other people?

Great poem man, I have totally been in a situation where my thoughts have gone along those lines.
What's the meaning of the title?

Thanks man!

The title - 'Ólta' is the Irish word for 'drunk'. And 18 in the number of vodkas I can remember buying that particular night ha

I've always wanted to write a song about a dystopia, mostly since reading the book 1984. This is what I came up with, I'm really proud of some of the lines. Think Rise Against when you're reading it...

Forget everything you know
They might find out
That you remember how it felt
To be free

We clutch onto the burdens we once held in our hands
They were easier to carry than this weightless trance
We look back to the days when we knew how to care
Before all but our bodies evaporated into the air

The sunrise breaks the sound of youth
Underground we savor every ounce of truth
The strength we find we cannot teach
The freedom hangs without the ground in reach

We race with the wind back from where we came from
Guides us through the night to clutch to torches in the sun
Because all that we fear is the loss of this light now
Yeah all that we fear is the loss of this light as…

The sunrise breaks the sound of youth
Underground we savor every ounce of truth
The ignorance hides us beneath its cloak
We balance slavery to them with slavery to hope

These walls tremble around us as the world seems to disappear
Emptiness fills the holes in the universe we used to call the air.
But their power only exists inside this lie we one time bought
And this fire in my blood burns every fear of being caught

The sunrise
Oh the once magnificent sunrise

Wakes and breaks the sound of youth
A fallen savior for every ounce of truth
The peace we found inside this moment
Wages war against every word they said

Day 1
Your kingdom waits for October
And all she wants is more time with you
To watch the leaves change,
To watch the world die:
Her hands reaching out
To puncture the empty space
Between your hardened haunted heart
And her unfounded faithful love.

Day 2
With my back pressed
To the broken wall of your temple
I call out to the Harvest Soul
Of your youthful deviation
And see his alter
On the beach outside the city;
A New England winter town
Where the king is Evening’s Air
And the Chorus waits to be forgotten.

Oh how you anoint me as king,
Is not the arrow beyond thee?

The Poet Jonah wrote:

Day 1
Your kingdom waits for October
And all she wants is more time with you
To watch the leaves change,
To watch the world die:
Her hands reaching out
To puncture the empty space
Between your hardened haunted heart
And her unfounded faithful love.

I love this, Cody. The autumn imagery is great, it really gives the poem a kind of quiet, somber feel. Those last four lines... wow. Poor girl.

The "hardened haunted heart" is my favorite part. Sounds like a guy that lives with a lot of ghosts, like someone Brian would write about. This poem is really, really great.

The Poet Jonah wrote:

Day 2
With my back pressed
To the broken wall of your temple
I call out to the Harvest Soul
Of your youthful deviation
And see his alter
On the beach outside the city;
A New England winter town
Where the king is Evening’s Air
And the Chorus waits to be forgotten.

Oh how you anoint me as king,
Is not the arrow beyond thee?

You did it again! This is beautiful. Really beautiful.

Quote :

A New England winter town
Where the king is Evening’s Air
And the Chorus waits to be forgotten.

This part is gorgeous. It seems familiar, but where do the Evening Air and the Chorus come from?
I really like the cold, dark feel of both of these new poems. Fall and winter are perfect settings for your poetry.

The last two lines are from 1 Samuel, right? That was a great ending. I think this poem will be stuck in my head for a long time.

IrishNameAndAnInjury wrote:

The Poet Jonah wrote:

Day 2
With my back pressed
To the broken wall of your temple
I call out to the Harvest Soul
Of your youthful deviation
And see his alter
On the beach outside the city;
A New England winter town
Where the king is Evening’s Air
And the Chorus waits to be forgotten.

Oh how you anoint me as king,
Is not the arrow beyond thee?

You did it again! This is beautiful. Really beautiful.

Quote :

A New England winter town
Where the king is Evening’s Air
And the Chorus waits to be forgotten.

This part is gorgeous. It seems familiar, but where do the Evening Air and the Chorus come from?
I really like the cold, dark feel of both of these new poems. Fall and winter are perfect settings for your poetry.

The last two lines are from 1 Samuel, right? That was a great ending. I think this poem will be stuck in my head for a long time.

the evening air is a reference to the nights I partied away in my youth and the Chorus is the voice of reason I forgot.

And you run from all of your fathers past mistakes. And you run to escape the same fate. The sins of our fathers shape our lives. The sins of a life gone cold. The life that makes you old. The sins of the father, the sins of our fathers. 



A verse and chorus for "sins of the father(s)"

New EP, Revival Of The Moon: http://www.last.fm/music/Streetcar+Graffiti/Revival+Of+The+Moon

The Stone Broke Heroes Of Friday Night

This house is empty for the next three seconds
'cause bad decisions in the best form are coming our way
Start the party and check the mattress
The way she smiled against the August moon seems to say

Baby, won't you come and give my heart a shake
Honey, maybe we should fall into a brilliant mistake

We're the stone broke heroes of Friday night
Drink until we're pretty and the neighbors start to pity
all the passed-out kids under porch lights
We're the stone broke heroes of Friday night
Dance until the morning or the siren and the warning
tries to tear us apart but we'll be all right

She grabbed my hand and said we'll be a minute
I got a Motown record that he says he hasn't heard
My eyes said silently, "I want this moment"
Her eyes were emeralds as she whispered, "Baby, let your body burn"

Everything is perfect in these nights gone wrong
And we kissed over the sound of my favorite song

Pretty girls, all flushed with shame, they don't know their lovers' names
There's an August moon and a midnight sky, there's ambulances driving by
It's hard to silence lingering doubts, the clock's ablaze, our luck's run out

Angel At Night

I lie in silence at night, my thoughts on the girl who was mine
Her scent on the bed that we shared, the crossed line still unaware
She was an angel at night until we drifted to fights
Of love and jealousy and death, her promises never kept

So who was good to you? The things you do make it hard to lose you
I was satisfied on late night drives just being alive

I walk down barely-lit streets, phone on and within my reach
The hours like hustlers' knives, slowly taking our lives
She's still somewhere in my mind, arresting thoughts that I find
In the shadows we leave, on lovers following thieves

Her footsteps echo and fade into dust
She keeps my heart with my misplaced trust
She came again with no sound or explanation
I pray to find the strength to make sure that my work's not wasted

Queen Of Roses

Love violet sending shivers up my spine
I've been chasing your shadow, always three steps behind
Can you hear them angels singing for my troubles while you stand in someone else's line?

She said he looks like Elvis or Jesus
She don't know which but I know I don't believe it
Searching for my triggers like a vulture in the night
You'll never get this heart of stone, I found a home for it

Somewhere underneath the moon and above the streets, my darling
That's where I'll be
Bet you wish I'm holding out for you or that I'd have to
If I wanted to see if love was real

She said he's just like Brando, a wild one
I rev my engine 'cause baby, I'm done
Search all you want 'cause honey, I'm gone tonight
You'll never get this heart of stone, I found a home for it

I was grown in the shadow of her throne
I wore her crown and cleansed her roses of their thorns

Teenage Whispers

I met you when I stumbled through these black clouds
Gathering around the foot of my bed
You helped me up along with teenage whispers
Reverberating in my head

And you looked into my smiles
Thinking I'd forget

Those times you said you liked the way that her dress
Waved on the beach when you said goodbye to him
And fell in her arms, and reset your heart
You said you loved her and that's why you can't be mine tonight

You say I turn you on in shockwave motions
I never meant to set alight
I'll wave goodbye as long as it won't give you
Some hope that you'll be mine tonight

I'm saving us both from hurt
Bet you wish I could forget

Get Well, Sweetheart

I first saw you walking by, innocent with golden eyes
I remember the church bell's chime, signalling that something here was right
Then you tried to play the part to ensnare a young man's heart
But without ever meaning to, your dress tying the knots and your mouth the truth

I can't see what these days will bring but I'll protect you, my American queen
From the judging eyes that would tear you down

When you stumbled through the door, no sound as you crossed the floor
Worn down in the throes of life, signalling that something wasn't right
I walk you to your car, no recollection of where you are
Then my heart was ten miles deep, I let you go just thinking you needed sleep

If I had a second chance to replay that night I'd take your hand
And drive you home, always together
The night goes on forever

Get well, sweetheart

Stone



I was just too young to know
I was too young to ask
While you set your self on show
While you wore a brand new mask

So where are you tonight, What are you now
What became of that person I used to see
What took your heart
and left in its place a stone

Who blamed this mess on you
And all the things you do
When did the sea of your soul
Dry into death valley

So where are you tonight, What are you now
What became of that person I used to see
What took your heart
and left in its place a stone

While the Interstate holds the future
I am stuck on the past
Feeling often like the last
The world goes by way too fast

So know this while you can still hear
And not Do not bother to shed a tear
This thing still holds me like a fear
Or like a dirty relflection in a mirror.

Okay, here are a couple verses.

Still unnamed song- I thinking this would be the bridge.

Now you stare me down
Now you want to knock me down
You want to knock me down to your level
But I am so much better

Take you fun out of causing pain
Mocking those who have more of a brain
You lost and I won
Now your power over me is gone.

Now not a thing is ever gonna haunt me
Go ahead and try to prove me wrong
I'' drive all the way to the sea
Just to prove you wrong

JimmyB wrote:

Okay, here are a couple verses.

Still unnamed song- I thinking this would be the bridge.

Now you stare me down
Now you want to knock me down
You want to knock me down to your level
But I am so much better

Take you fun out of causing pain
Mocking those who have more of a brain
You lost and I won
Now your power over me is gone.

Now not a thing is ever gonna haunt me
Go ahead and try to prove me wrong
I'' drive all the way to the sea
Just to prove you wrong

honestly, it sucks.

Well, here's what I'd say, Jimmy...

If you want to play the role of the vengeful, wronged lover, you need to be sharp, biting, incisive, cunning, clever. You absolutely cannot come across as grating or infantile, which the speaker honestly does in those lines. He says he's so much better, but how do we know? You need to show us that, don't just tell us...why do we believe this guy? Because I don't. This doesn't read as anything resembling real. Maybe these are your true emotions, but you need to make us know that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Essentially, we've all had our moments when the only thought in our minds were, "FUCK THIS BITCH!" That being said, very few people have an aching desire to hear a song with a chorus of "FUCK THIS BITCH!" You have to drape it in imagery and dress up the words a little. You don't need to use a thesaurus (and please don't...it's never a good idea) but really put every bit of yourself into every line. I guarantee you it will yield better results than what you have there. And yes, what you have there is not very good.

Once again. First draft of my work.
Okay. Scrapping those lyrics. I regret writing them due to how horrible they are.

I have a couple better ones in the back pages.

[It Happened One Night]
They say young people in love
Are never hungry,
But standing between
Two cracks in the driveway
I heard the rumble of my stomach
And watched your taillights
Disappear through the night.

With my dog on the porch
Waiting to be let in
And that stray cat
Across the street
Laughing from beneath the tree
I couldn’t help but notice
The weight of the invading night
And its lonely crusaders
Of half buried stones;
A gentle reminder
Of my old flossing habits.

They say young people in love
Are never hungry,
But I’m sure you were starving
On your way home.

I wasn’t completely alone that night,
Me and the stray
Had something in common:
A selfish devotion to the eternal rain,
And the pathetic sight
Of me falling to pieces.

They say young people in love
Are never hungry,
But once you were gone
I locked the world out from within
And went to my room
Where I closed the door to Alcatraz,
Forgetting all about the stray cat in the rain.