As a bit of a change from my usual rather intense and depressing poetry, I decided to have some fun today with song lyrics. It works a bit like the book spine poetry which Breathing Space or Bettina Forget or DP Bowman do so well. Except that you choose song lyrics (rather than just titles) and, in my case, I stuck to David Bowie exclusively this time round. Not quite as good when the music is missing, but I happen to think there is some great poetry in these songs too. See if you can spot which songs they are from…
‘Can you hear me, Major Tom?’
‘Oh, no, not again!’
‘I thought you died alone, a long, long time ago…’
‘I never did good things, I never did bad things,
I never did anything out of the blue.’
‘Maybe we’re lying -
then you’d better not stay!’
This is ourselves under pressure:
the return of the Thin White Duke
throwing darts in lovers’ eyes…
It’s a godawful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair,
she’s lived it ten times or more.
And the planet is glowing…
Let the children use it,
let the children lose it
like some cat from Japan,
like a leper messiah
Up every evening, bout half-eight or nine.
She says:
‘Time may change me
But I can’t trace time,
So I will sit right down ,
waiting for the gift of sound and vision,
drifting into my solitude, over my head.’
