Kicking off a fun association game week

[alee_grrl]

I chose a snippet from one of my favorite songs, Roll Away Your Stone by Mumford and Sons.


It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say, "That's exactly how this grace thing works"
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start

Full lyrics here.
Listen to the song here.

Comments

[jjhunter]

This reminds me of Johan from ysabetwordsmith's poem series 'Path of Paladins'.

=====

[...]

Johan walked and walked,
but he could not leave his thoughts behind,
not the memory of the shining city and the bright temple
the day he came to give himself to Gailah
nor the day he shook its rubble from his boots
and turned away from his Goddess.
He could not escape the mocking laughter of the lord
whom he had served until he could bear it no longer,
nor the unwelcome blessing of his former fellow Shahana
and the calm regard of the girl who stood by her side.

[...]

So Matin and Johan worked together,
restoring the picture of heaven's hall
that had been painted during a brighter time.
Johan was weeping again, silently,
his tears splashing into the little well of water
hollowed into the top of the pigment for mixing paint,
but the brush in his hand held steady
as he traced over the lines of his Goddess.

Johan found it easier to sleep that night
than it had been in a long time,
wrapped in the warm blanket of Matin's grace.
Heaven was as near as it had ever been,
just around the heart's corner.
When the dream came at last,
he heard Her voice the same as always,
intimate as a whisper in his inner ear:

Beloved, there are some things
that I also will not do.
One of them is give up on you.

==

Read the full poem here - Will Not. It was sponsored by several people including myself in my LJ incarnation (idhren24). The first poem in the series, 'Shine On', has been posted here at the comm previously with commentary by the author.

[alee_grrl]

I can see why the snippet would remind you of this. It is very appropriate. :)

[georginasand]

This snippet of song, and I think the music as well as the words, remind me of my second home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.

Particularly, "Darkness is a harsh term don't you think?/
And yet it dominates the things I see:"

Which in turn reminds me of another snippet of song lyrics--very much embedded in that same memory of place-- from The Indigo Girls "Closer to Fine:"

"Well, the darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And the lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety 'til I sank it..."

[jjhunter]

Oh, these snippets remind me strongly of a poem about 'Night Mares' I wrote ~10 years ago. Unfortunately that predates when I started keeping backups of my poems online & the magazine it was published in is back in storage at my parents' house. Bother.

--

Free association lyrical:

- Simon & Garfunkel's song "Hello Darkness My Old Friend"

Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain,
Still remains, within the sound of silence

[jjhunter]

And also Billie Holiday for that element of how something dark dominates one's vision:

Good Morning Heartache

Good morning heartache
You old gloomy sight
Good morning heartache
Thought we said goodbye last night
I turned and tossed
until it seems you had gone
But here you are with the dawn
Wish I forget you, but you're here to stay
It seems I met you
When my love went away
Now everyday I stop I'm saying to you
Good morning heartache what's new

Stop haunting me now
Can't shake you nohow
Just leave me alone
I've got those Monday blues
Straight to Sunday blues

Good morning heartache
Here we go again
Good morning heartache
You're the one
Who knows me well
Might as well get use to you hanging around
Good morning heartache

Sit down

[alee_grrl]

The band's sound is strongly Appalachian in a lot of ways.

For some reason these little snippets, especially the Indigo girls one, brings to mind the theme song from Firefly and the image of Serenity, a small ship against the vastness of space.

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...

[jjhunter]

I found that old poem I mentioned.

Night

Nighttime belongs on the other side of the looking glass
The air itself is different
a vacuum that draws forth possibilities
words from a writer
something cold and bitter from those who hide
under the indifferent sun
but the shadows--
they have a life of their own in this twisted place
devouring illusions and spawning new ones
'til imagination draws a host of evil all around
and the adventurer flees
to the 'real' world, only to see them follow--
silence
the dreamer lies at the crosspoint, in but not through the mirror
and in the twilight listens to the inner voice
releasing everything from that 'real' world
blending it with the possibilities of the other
and sometimes Erebus's mares
heads high, eyes gleaming with the darkest whispers of the wind
come screaming down the fields of asphodel
bearing on their ebony backs the worst horrors of the mind
silence fractured--like the mirror, the one that broke--
and the bottled evil oozes out, drawn to the dark in every soul
this is where screams are born
sometimes a dreamer slips past unknowing
but drinks of forgetfulness before returning
some never return at all
some wake with only tears
and a yearning
Once in a while, some pass through with eyes wide open
at night when certainty wavers
and look back through that transparent wall
that eye-glass for those who never realized they were blind
accept, and return with dearly bought wisdom
deny, and let the darkness take you
it is always waiting, always willing
to make you fodder for Erebus's mares.

[alee_grrl]

Lovely. It fits in beautifully with the thread of associations. Thank you for sharing.

[jjhunter]

I was so glad to find it! It's old - I wrote it back in 2004.

[georginasand]

That's beautiful.

[jjhunter]

Thank you!