In Passing

(source to be attibuted once known)

She understood that ghosts who passed in hallways

Must haunt alone,

So with intent she went,

Gliding down long corridors so lonesome,

Shrilling to who’d listen of lives spent.

Misunderstood, by sound, she shrieked of lost loves,

Of winsome days

She thought would never end,

She banshee’d to the ears of any,

Bewailed the curse of death that none can mend.

On and on she floated length and breadth there,

Restricted by no walls,

She couldn’t see

That life went on around her while she wailed it.

Of other ghost departed? He was free.

Free to sit in lounge chair by a fire,

Warming toes long cold

But pleasured yet

In memories he mulled, eternal leisure,

Reliving with fresh relish, no regrets.

New residents abiding could not fathom

Chill in air, untranslated weeping,

While heat ensued from room where no logs burned,

Restive and relaxed, by turns, they reckoned

That house was haunted, but they learned

To stay among the ghosts, whose grim reminders,

Chilled and warmed

The lives that they still led,

Kept to loving chambers warmly favoured

Veered from vestigial, the more than six feet dead.

Alas, poor love, she never got the memo,

Rarely entered heated rooms

While still alive,

Someone should have saved her ‘ere her passing,

Some ghost or breathing entity of life.

If you meet this spectre in life passing

Be sure to point the way

To other rooms,

Some there are appointed of all life’s warmth,

Pass it on, in death as in life groomed.

No idea where this came from. Summer sunshine? I knew I would be back to rhyming before the day was out. Apparently, I can’t resist. Nor little stories in my mind as they pop in. Ah, well. Back to the sunshine. And life. 🙂

 

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May Music, Day 5 – Prophetic Ghosts

Qustion 5 for day five of Twindaddy‘s musical challenge asks if there is a song that becomes caught in your mind. For me it’s not a whole song. Three lines of a song heard many, many years ago shift in and out of my mind on a fairly frequent basis. I never know what comes next and never bothered about finding out. It never troubled me.

All I knew was that the words were from a Genesis album one of my older brothers owned when I was about 12. As is the way, when you have older siblings, their musical tastes are often absorbed and become your own. I found this to be true of so many different artistes that they listened to. Later, I would find it to be true of my older husband! And now even with my kids. It makes for quite mixed musical tastes.

This particular song comes from the album, ‘Selling England by the Pound’ and the song is entitled, ‘Dancing with the Moonlit Knight’. I couldn’t have told you that until a couple of days ago. And the only album that sprung to mind for me when I thought of Genesis was ‘A Trick of the Tail’. But, by that time, Phil Collins had taken over as lead vocalist while Peter Gabriel was still lead in the 1973 release of ‘Selling England by the Pound’.

When I researched the repeating lyrics I found myself further researching the meaning behind them. And this poem evolved. It seems to me that Peter Gabriel’s song was more than just an indictment on the seventies but a prophetic vision of the future.

Ghosts of future, past encased in music,  

spectral lyrics hint of prophecy,

reflections of a present found too wanting,

poor changes wrought for human dignity.

Genesis to revelations’ future,

selling nations, dollar, yen and pound,

drowning Thames, all rivers, countries flounder,

while money makes the world go spinning round.

Mediaeval music moving forward,

imagery writ by angel hand,

Gabriel’s voice, moving many mountains,

consumption, credit, death of earthly lands. 

‘ “Can you tell me where my country lies,” said the unifaun to his true love’s eyes.

“It lies with me,” cried the Queen of Maybe…’

intermittent medley in my mind,

no mere rhetoric in question,

Prohetically allegorical, I find.