All articles

Exercise in Song Cross-examination

Where do you want to go? Home.
You’re tired? Yes: I want to go to bed.
And how much did you drink, and when? A bit, just
now.

Where did that go? To my head!

Where have you been (pick three)?
To: 1. Foam 2. Land 3. Sea.
And is that you singing? Probably, yes!
Who wants to get back home? Me.

Exercise in Song Another subjectivity

"Show me the way home!" he cried
To this weedy bloke from out of town,
Who muttered something noncommittal, sat alone,
And jotted something down.

The old chap sang and swore
On the tables, chairs and floor;
But whenever I looked back at the snug:
That bloke was writing some more!

Exercise in Song Alexandrines

Direct me down the path I should be taking now;
My eyelids heavy, I want to be sleeping in.
The drink I drank not one hour since has travelled up
My spine; it lurks outside my brain, is creeping in.

Precisely where I am does not occur to me,
Nor seek my roving eyes majestic scenery.
Wherever I might find myself, there find my voice,
Demanding you direct me where I want to be.

Exercise in Song Unexpected

“Well, what a racket I heard!”
“You’d gone on a pub crawl, after all.”
“Yeah, but this guy was singing of how he was tired—”
“I bet: and ‘emotional!’”

“He tapped me for a quid,
But then later flipped his lid,
And he asked this stranger to show him home—”
“Yes. Here I am, ’cos he did.”

Exercise in Song Spectral

Long after yonder inn closed,
The quiet was shattered by a groan!
A ghostly figure, head in hands, appeared to me,
Crying: "show me the way home!"

This fearful, tortured shade
Finally began to fade,
Calling "rest! At last!" as he disappeared,
Right where his bones had been laid.