Lyric № 79687
Come off with me Carly back into the city
-
"It's a game," she said.
"A what?"
"A game - next time we go under a yellow light, touch
something metal - like, I don't know, the roof - and say
'Great sex'. And you'll have great sex."
"With you?" I said.
"Don't be silly."
Come off with me Carly
Back into the city. We might
Drive the empty streets 'til early,
Ride back under yellow stoplights,
So the summer comes undone.
For this wild night I've come unsettled:
Come on out! The night is pearly,
Wind is blowing white pear petals
Across the lawn; and if I'm steady
We can un-touch parts of metal
Under every yellow stoplight â
Un-exist a month of midnights
So you won't be dead already â
If you'll come back with me Carly
To the city once again â
All this I pray. The wind, it eddies
In a field of yellow nettles
By the churchyard that is Carly's,
And the church with creeping charlie
Rustles in the dark. And then
I head on back into the city,
Tired and thinking she'd have surely
Died another way as early
If it wasn't that. And Carly
Sits beside me, keeps me fellow,
Making all the stoplights yellow
While the sky turns flat with gray light -
It's the coming, I think, of daylight -
And beside me still, a pretty
Girl reminds me to be steady,
Tells me sentiment is shitty:
Touch the roof â and hurly-burly
Over the city bursts the sun.
28 comments
it implies fellowship
her ghost is keeping you company
i think it completely works with the rest of the piece
we should figure it out on our own
stoplight/midnight and light/daylight are hard rhymes and should not be so close together
i also think "it's the coming, i think, of daylight" feels out of place and is awkwardly worded
you don't really use that kind of syntax anywhere else
all that said, once again, you right good stuff
but i would remove "So you won't be dead already"
i think that's a bit too much telling
we can already infer that she's dead when we get to that line
i have no idea what to say about the gray light/daylight thing :)
however, i also think a good piece doesn't need an explanatory note, that everything you need to get is in the poem itself
however, even with everything in the poem, it shouldn't be completely spelled out for the reader, no hand holding
i just find it more rewarding as a reader if i discover the meaning rather than being told the meaning
of course, this is just my opinion, and when make something as subjective as an opinion about something as equally subjective in definition as poetry, it's bound to be wrong to more than a few people
and i certainly don't claim to be any expert
sorry if i'm being too critical here, you can feel free to tell me to shut up whenever
"it shouldn't be completely spelled out for the reader" - In the same way we say a person is obvious in their ordinary speech, like my little sister who (at 23) still says things like "it's raining" or "I saw a cat." Yet you wouldn't say we're normally cryptic in our speech. You see? You can just relate things. The note aside, "you won't be dead already" is completely different from "she'd have surely died..." And that's my favorite rhyme.
and i seriously don't mean to be an ass
I don't ordinarily care much for that gimmick myself, but the poem relying on a headnote is also not the best. No need to say it was a ritual, just show her touching metal parts of your car and saying "Great sex" and then perhaps telling you the next day whether it worked.
Thanks for the props. I've got a ton of decent songs, but the band's been at a standstill for the last month anyway, since the drummer and keyboardist decided to take us in "jazzier directions" - whatever the hell that means. Maybe I'll give it another shot when I get back, but I can't imagine wanting to. Give me a job writing, doing something where I don't have to submit myself to a half dozen others' stoned opinions all the time.
Or as some non-zero games theorist. That would be pretty ace.
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