A Murder (Collab. with Solst, Spoken Word)

The collaboration that spanned two continents and an ocean. We hope that you enjoy.

This collaboration was solely done through spoken word. The poem has never been written down. So now I'm writing it down, for those who are hard of hearing, etc.

 

Traanscript to A Murder

 

I wonder why they call it a murder?

Every evening finds me draped across my balcony

Watching as they come in from the fields

A sea of black swirling wings, contrasting

Against an amber sky

Beautiful, beautiful crows

 

The sounds of those relentlessly haunting skylords irritate me

Making me feel small, stuck in the memory of my failure

Give me a quietus to life, for I am missing something

Dead, if you like, welcomed by no one

I was once unwittingly butchered in a campaign

The finale to my days in hell

Each and every moment that passes

Cuts slices deeper into my heart

An arduous toil, my only love

Working my fingers to the bone

Feeding my family

Slaughtered, like lambs

Dragged, raped, killed, murdered

What strength can beauty give me now?

 

Most fail to appreciate the dark, savage beauty of the crow

For he is a cackling scavenger

But then, what is man if not a scavenger?

How many times have they flocked over these fields

Reaping every last crumb, leaving only bloodshed in their wake

Though their bellies are already full?

The crows only seek when they're hungry

And I wonder, why they call it war

When it should simply be called

 

Peace.

That illustrious jewel

We all so desperatly seek

What good is such a term,

In the absence of a universal meaning?

Strangles love into submission, winds fear about our limbs

Drives our hopes into remission, into despair

Why? I only ask WHY people cannot understand

What it is to be alive, to animate the world

It is too late, the moment your skin is pulled from your bones

All the air sucked by someone else's lungs

There is such a thing as beauty, yes,

But the ugliness of war makes me feel the need to fight

And each failure to act sickens me

It chips some of my beauty away

I see a kind of peace that effects everything thereafter

Leaving wounded victims bewildered

In a land of serene anarchy

With enough zest for those that are against war

To fight, for peace

I am weakened to the heart from this battle

 

Hunched over the balcony rail, gazing westward, I falter

But, in that beautiful murder in the sky

I find the sustenance to carry me

To carry me as high as that charcoal winged cavalcade can soar

Every amber twilight- a promise of hope

For the souls of those lost upon this, or any soil

Are NOT trapped there in the dust, or in the chaff

But have been let loose to fly toward that greater freedom

A flight we bound to earth can never quite touch, or understand

Until a murder makes us see...

 

So ashamed, I felt like running, putting an end to my struggles

I wanted to ruin love, stifle hope and banish smiles because

I wasn't happy. I didn't understand

Ashamed of my misery, my confusion, my loss

I spent many days justifying my severance

Withholding, inverting my affection

Sitting on my passions, unable to accept

That some bits are never in the right place

The whole world slipped away from me

And I tormented every residue that remained

The perpetrator was ME, no one else

I felt ruined, and so I ruined

Until, finally, I was alone

Then, I understood

I did know beauty

All along.

 

 

Author's Note

This was a fun and mystifying experience for me. Bit by bit, the stanzas were passed by email from Kansas to England and back again, warped and smoothed as we went along--never written down, just a poetic dialogue between Solst and myself. I rather like the message and theme that formed. I hope that all can hear what we are saying, and truly understand.
C

Reviews

[Ice QueenJen]

This was far beyond what I expected- I feel it is mystically beautiful. They difference in both your voices, and the way you each put your own feelings into this piece was great. It was as if Solst was in an era where a war was raging around him, and he was telling you what he saw and felt. Then you were trying to console him and show that there was more to life than the ugliness he saw surrounding him. I would love to see this done again, I loved it.

[Cold Coffee Magazine]

This was a new experience for me. I found the exchange between the two seperate voices moved the story along very nicely where one might have seemed long winded. Both voices were spoken with articulate clairity. I found Solst's voice and acent almost mezmerizing and believe he should consider if hasn't already doing story reads or movie voice overs.

This wa a great write and I can see you had a lot of fun creating this work of art. Well done.

Best

Dave