The Arcade Fire Funeral Memory

A band called The Arcade Fire came out with Funeral in 2004, one of my all-time favorite albums. This is my tribute to the music and the memories it elicits. One section for each song (10), but they flow as one.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

 

A golden hymn

tripping over asphalt

turns and twists

black pools spotted like eyes,

winding wavy ovals

into parked flow streams,

remembrance of green belts.

 

Change my lead to gold

and grow higher,

sleep in my head

like a day grown dim.

 

Trace the colors,

trace the inside

of a voice sung

in sunken memory,

like the wind

pushing sound from light leaves

traces my ears inside the lines

and pushes me back to her outline,

her shadow discolored in black,

stars I strain to see at night.

 

Not envy but empty

chords recreate memory, solo

records a tribute to time gone,

a part from her sea,

land locked and dehydrating,

withering like a rainy day

to green dust.

 

Neighborhood #1 (Laika)

 

Steady notes play on monotones

and she is all I see

as my smooth peak

lowers in recollection.

 

Une Annee Sans Lumiere

 

Shadows of sight sink

and swim in the dim lake

of memory collections.

 

A vision of a rock steady

I sit and watch and waste.

 

Aura glinted my green eyes,

a slow spectacle of curved vision

and remains today a spark

of curiosity and pining for returns.

 

Through music.

Through an image.

Anything.

I am always there.

 

Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

 

Take this small splice of time

and stretch its sides.

 

Incase the liquid in glass,

form the tracing flies

and molding puffy white

clouds shrunken in a mid-March sky.

 

Raise a glass in magnification

and slumber

beside the comfort of such purity.

 

Neighborhood #4 (Kettles)

Sooth me with Susan’s voice,

her trailing slurred speech,

the pitch of her wings through wind,

the tone of bright eyes,

dark brunet and sympathetic.

 

Slow and smooth motions

of eye lids blinking dark screens,

sleight motions of straight lines

from my sight to her

that stay an eye’s length away.

 

Her sharpened fire cuts the black night,

and boils my chest to hot water

that singes my veins to a rolling boil.

 

The heat spews steam like kettles

through my thoughts in saunas

and drowns the sound of their form.

 

But I blistered and calloused

and live in dead skin cells,

and any day could come to be

again, she will come to me

again, I will speak and shield her heat.

 

Crown Of Love

 

Susan, if you want me, please,

forgive me for not saying

anything when you were with me.

 

I strummed my strings and found

an empty sound,

an ache of anxiety waking me

in nervous sweaty sheets covering like regret.

 

Wake Up

 

An older sight,

torn up and colder,

has more nostalgia

for a rusting memory.

 

Tell me it’s a lie

and I’ll adjust.

 

Dancing pictures

spotty and slurring

like an intoxication

of endorphins.

 

Haiti

 

Smooth water dripping down streams

in flows of clear reflections,

a playful sunlight curtaining off creek beds

and swerving bright uncolored spots

around my instinct and sight.

 

A sunny day in mid-March

sits on a rusting rock,

watches and wastes

my sight away to memory.

 

Calmed in slight moments pictured and shuttered,

I caught a slim photograph captured and without many burns.

 

Rebellion (Lies)

 

I close my lying eyes to dream and be saved by night,

a progression like water back to a river mouth,

every time I close in a dream slips through a crack

broken by my steady faults and sulkily unrepaired.

 

Without water I think and dream

in solitude and singularities,

a sight of someone I think I would love,

memory of near perfect days

hid underneath the covers.

 

In The Backseat

 

The ending and hopeful progression

to another high note.

Author's Note

I wrote this while listening to the CD, and each section I wrote while listening to that specific song. If you haven't heard the CD, well, I would suggest you buy/download it, as it was up for alternative album of the year at the Grammy's and has some really profound lyrics. I actually just added the first and ninth songs to my playlist on my homepage (the two that especially inspired me to write this), so give them a listen and see whether that affects the way you read the poem.

It's long, is it too long? Do the sections flow well? What suggestions would you make to smooth it out, if any? Help me on this one, I'm quite interested in its development.

Reviews

[Kelly Scheppers]

Travis, I'm not familiar with the CD to make a constructive comment, but if you wrote this while listening to it...that, in itself, is very impressive!

To be perfectly honest with you, I shy away from lengthy reads....I typically try to write at a minimum, so not to divert the reader's eyes to the bottom of the page. But that's just me. You do what works best for YOU!

Your content is always striking to me, and I believe you are quite gifted!

My best,
Kelly

[KatiePie]

I enjoyed reading this, it was a bit lenghty, but I don't think it would've had the amazing and wonderful depth of affect if it wasn't. Really great work ^-^
Keep writing,

[Gandré]

I really like these lyrical images. I don't know the music, but I felt like in a dream, reading your poetry. I think, the poem should look a bit shorter, they say, long poem wouldn't get reader's full attention, I thought, you could make - if you wish a change - prose poems and I would part them actually, so every one gets full attention - and that's what you actually want. I did it with the first one: I am suggesting this to you because you had the wish.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

A golden hymn tripping over asphalt turns and twists black pools spotted like eyes, winding wavy ovals into parked flow streams, remembrance of green belts.

Change my lead to gold and grow higher, sleep in my head like a day grown dim. Trace the colors, trace the inside of a voice sung in sunken memory, like the wind pushing sound from light leaves traces my ears inside the lines and pushes me back to her outline, her shadow discolored in black, stars I strain to see at night.

Not envy but empty chords recreate memory, solo records a tribute to time gone, a part from her sea, land locked and dehydrating, withering like a rainy day to green dust.

(my adjustment in MS Word was right margin: 2).

wonderful work.

[Ezira Kardtman]

Very, very creative! I like how you incorporated bits of the song into your writing. I love The Arcade Fire ("Wake Up" is one of my favorite songs.)

[ZeeArsonist]

this collection of work is brilliant. i truly enjoy each piece, such lush imagery, depth and creative thoughts. this place needs more writers like you! bravo! ps: i adore this band as well; although have not listened to anything after funeral because funeral is just so perfect i couldnt want for anyting more. hope that makes sense.

[Not Afraid of Bruises]

That was an awesome write. I want to say that my work shopping self wants it to be broken into pieces, but I really feel like that would take away from the poem as well. I suggest taking it to an actual workshop so people can mark the poem up and give you face-to-face feedback. Best of luck, and keep writing

[Starlit Scarlett]

Hi! Sorry this is such a long time in coming; I've been away from writerscafe for awhile and am trying to get back into the swing of things (which means going through my read requests)! :)
And boy, am I glad I read this!
Arcade Fire is one of my favorite bands (great soundtrack to college life), and I definitely feel they are underrated by most. This idea of yours is definitely in keeping with their intense creativity.
I can tell that you were listening to each song as you wrote those specific poems, because you captured the general feeling so fluently, but my favorite by a longshot was your poem for "Rebellion (Lies)". Usually in reviews I like to choose a specific quote or phrase that really resounds with me, but I can't do that in this situation because I lOVE the whole thing; it's perfect. I'm definitely going to have to give Funeral another listen!

[laceyjane23]

this was done very creatively big kudos for that! i have never read a poem that was inspired by a specific cd or music well done! its a little long but it does flow together, the band should be grateful that you decided to do this!
laceyjane

[-Adam-]

Hey man, hell of a write. the beggining of was a little difficult trying to put it with something. Everything from the start of crown of love to the section of wake up was just great. Not saying the rest was note good, they were just the ones that stood out to me. Sorry it took so long to read this one but I've been away for a while. I'll catch back up in a month or so.

P.S. It is longb but f^ck it!

Later buddy,
-Adam-

[Star Cross]

This is extremely well-written. You use description as your key into many of your poems, which contributes imagery and emotions into it. I can almost feel the words coming alive and hear the author read this to me face-to-face. However, the poem, to me, seems a little bumpy. The sentences are slightly choppy and it shows me really incomplete thoughts that portray the message. Do not get me wrong, you are a talented writer, but you don't hit the point of the poem(s), which is the most important part. When I read it, it was breath-taking, but you touch briefly of the core, and then go around it. However, this is by far one of the best poem I have read. You truly have the potential to become a great writer.

[KayOss]

It is not too long, but I had to read them as sections and worry about linking the whole later. I think it's only because I tend to get so antsy that I have to move about (it's one reason that I study while moving... walking circles and such). While I greatly enjoyed this and as usually, had a lot of fun with the imagery, I do wonder if I'd get even greater enjoyment if I read this after listening to the CD in question. Maybe I should get the CD and listen to it while reading this again. Hrm... Something to ponder.

By the way, the transitions were like track changes on a great CD... You could tell you were listening to a new song, but that it was off the same album. Related and fitting. Does that make sense? I surely hope so.