The Cure's Disintegration - A Cento

The Cure: Disintegration*

i ran to your heart to be near,
     and we kissed as the sky fell in; then you smiled for a second

i will kiss you - i will kiss you - i will kiss you,
forever on nights like this.

the soft and the black and the velvety up tight against the side of me

let's move to the beat,
sweet [and] wild...
i tremble[], stuck in honey

whatever words i say, i will always love you
....you shatter me.
the happiness of falling down laughing,
      and i really believe[] that this time [is] forever
     
if only i could fill my heart with love,  
be still - be calm - be quiet now, my precious,
[I go] down on my knees...hungrily.

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*This poem is composed of lines from each of the tracks on The Cure's Disintegration album (1989). 

The songs are: Closedown, Disintegration, Fascination Street, Homesick, Last Dance Lovesong, Lullaby, Pictures Of You, Plainsong, Prayers For Rain, The Same Deep Water As You, and Untitled

Shakespeare Is In Dire Straits - A Love Story For the Ages #Mashup

What light through yonder window breaks?
I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
It is Juliet.
Juliet is the sun.

He's underneath the window: "With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls"
A lovestruck Romeo steps out of the shade.
Says something like, "You and me babe—how 'bout it?"

Juliet says, "How now, who calls?"
"Hey it's Romeo.  Hey, la, my boyfriend's back."

"Juliet, when we made love you used to cry.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs.
I love you like the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die."

Silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, like softest music to attending ears.
Now all I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme

A pair of star-cross'd lovers, two of the fairest stars in all the heaven.
I'd do the stars with you any time.

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A #mashup of lines from Shakepeare's classic play from 1597, Romeo and Juliet, and The Dire Straits' hit song from 1981, Romeo and Juliet.

#Remashed Songs

More playing around with song lyrics; slightly tweaking, revising and rearranging them into little essences of songs.  Here are a handful of them:

Ana Ng (They Might Be Giants) #ReMashed

Listen Ana, hear my words.
"I don't want the world, I just want your half."
Is there a me for you?


Lola (The Kinks) #ReMashed

Champagne flows like cherry cola.
Under the electric candlelight,
she gives me a thigh-breaking squeeze.


Give Me Love (Ed Sheeran) #ReMashed

The taste that your lips allow, lately I've been craving more
Give a little time to me, or burn this out
I just wanna hold ya, and turn this around

Oh, give me love.

Your Body Is a Wonderland (John Mayer) #ReMashed

Discovering you; your bubblegum tongue, your candy lips.
Want love?
We'll make it.

Infected - A Cento

Infected, A Cento*

So many people, can't express what's on their minds,
Nobody knows them & nobody ever will,

My heart is heavy--my head is confused,
And my aching little soul--has started burning blue.

[No.]. I'm a man without a soul, honey,
Who lost it while parading it, in a town full of thieves

A shadow hunting shadows
[S]miling through my teeth

I don't know what's wrong or right,
I'm just a regular guy with bottled up insides

Down by the river, I've been washing out my mouth,
Deep in the heart of me, there's a frightened man breaking out

[J]ust another guy, with desires that I can't satisfy
Sometimes I get so lonesome, I could die.

I never said I was the man I appeared to be
[G]onna move up close [] and wrestle with the thoughts solitude always brings

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*This poem is composed of two lines from each of the tracks on The The's Infected Album (1986). 

The songs are: Heartland, Infected, Out of the Blue (Into the Fire), Twilight of a Champion, Sweet Bird of Truth, Angels of Deception, Slow Train to Dawn, The Mercy Beat.

The Joshua Tree - A Cento

The Joshua Tree, A Cento*

The night
It burn[s] like fire

Sky rip[s] open,
the howling wind driving nails into [my] soul[]

The moon has turned red
And the stars fall from the sky
[I] turn away to face the cold enduring chill

I want shelter
I want to feel sunlight on my face

[I] cry without weeping
[I] talk without speaking
Scream without raising [my] voice

Nothing to win, and nothing left to lose
I await without you.

Dress torn in ribbons and in bows
Like a siren she calls me

Love, slowly stripped away
[She's] all that's left to hold onto
I'm hanging on

In the hands of love
I went deeper into black - deeper into white

I was cold and you clothed me honey
But I was naked in the clothes you made

In the rain, tears
In the wind, laughter
[My] heartbeat. [I] hear my heart beat.

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*This poem is composed of two-three lines from each of the tracks on U2's Joshua Tree Album (1987).  

The songs are: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Bullet the Blue Sky, One Tree Hill, Where the Streets Have No Name, Running to Stand Still, With or Without You, In God's Country, Red Hill Mining Town, Exit, Trip Through Your Wires,  and Mothers of the Disappeared  

We're Out of Time - A Cento

We're Out of Time, A Cento*

She got up from the kitchen table.
Folded the newspaper and silenced the radio.

Something has gone wrong.
And I don't know how much longer I can take it.

This flower is scorched.
This film is on, a maddening loop.

The world is collapsing, around our ears.
But I can't hear it.

40,000 stars in the evening,
Look at them fall from the sky.

My mind is racing.
Blackbirds backwards forwards and fall and hold hold.

It seems a shame you waste your time for me.
But what about me?

It seems so silly.
I skipped the part about love.

Oh no, I've said too much.
I set it up.

There's no time to cry.
Throw your love around,
love me,
love me.


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*This poem is composed of two lines from each of the tracks on REM's Out of Time Album (1991), except for Endgame (an instrumental track).  

The songs are: Belong, Near Wild Heaven, Country Feedback, Radio Song, Texarkana, Low, Me In Honey, Half A World Away, Losing My Religion, Shiny Happy People.

Stolen Lines - Of Wistful Hopefulness

If it comes out of your soul like a rocket.

Burn it out to the end.

 I forget the rest. . .

Ah yes . . .

Everything will be okay in the end.
And if its not okay, its not the end.

A Tribute to Kurt Vonnegut - Piecing Together His Words

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?  Me?  I can have oodles of charm when I want to. No good at life, but very funny sometimes with the commentary.  

So here's my advice:

Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.

Just because you can read, write and do a little math, doesn't mean that you're entitled to conquer the universe. If you can do no good, at least do no harm.

There are too many of us and we are all too far apart. But there is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look. So make love when you can. It's good for you. It's to make your soul grow.

(You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit. All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. Actually, in nonsense is strength. But I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.)

So.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. 

There is no why. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. 

All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. All this happened, more or less. Round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin. Everything is nothing, with a twist. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep. 

In the end, we are what we imagine ourselves to be. 

And so it goes . . . Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. And until you die . . . it's all life. 

And in the meantime, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos; where everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.

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**With the exception of a few transitions, all lines in the above are verbatim quotes from the works of Kurt Vonnegut.

Lyrical Mashup Parts I, II, III - A Cento of Sorts

I hear in my mind, all of this music . . .

I.

Thought we said goodbye last night,

I turned and tossed 'til it seemed you had gone.

But here you are with the dawn.

I didn't wake up this morning, because I didn't go to bed.
I was watching the whites of my eyes turn red.

The woman was a dream I had, though rather hard to keep.

For when my eyes were watching hers.  They closed. And I was still asleep.

Night is drawing near.
Shadows of the evening crawl across the years.

When you were young, you shone like the sun.

And every time I see your face, you know I softly die.  I can feel an angel sliding up to me.

Born before the wind and younger than the sun, the angel opens her eyes.
She's suddenly beautiful.

Honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered in the extreme.
But you're a good girl and you know it . . . .  Somebody who loves me.

Who am I?

I'm the rainbow in your jail cell.
All the memories of everything you've ever smelled.

And I will always love you from afar.

I remember way back then when everything was true 

And I remember how we'd play, simply waste the day away

Nothing would come between us two dreamers.

People like us, we don't need that much, just someone that starts, starts the spark in our bonfire hearts.

But now, I'm so lonely I don't even want to be with myself anymore.  Same as it ever was.

Now, in the dark of night. Those small hours. Uncertain and anxious. I need to call you.

Putting on my daytime eyes, a good enough disguise until i get some sleep.

*  *  *

II.

In summer's blinding light, the smell of wine and cheap perfume,
Don't you think that its boring how people talk?  All lies and jest.

Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.

Each season strips us down to the bone and we bear it.

But once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

There are rainbows, on the other side.

I wanna to be a Debaser.

I wanna dance with Somebody!
I wanna rock your Gypsy soul.

But in my lifetime, I'm still not right.  

I throw my hands up in the air, the only soul in the world thats real.

How long till my soul gets it right?
This world falls on me with hopes of immortality.

But it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, if you don't know by now.

Anyone not dying is dead, so shut up and carry on.
One step at a time.

So, follow your arrow.
See.  The world don't move to the beat of just one drum.

And what might be right for you may not be right for some.

Those who feel the breath of sadness. Sit down next to me. 

Those who find they’re touched by madness. Sit down next to me.
Those who find themselves ridiculous. Sit down next to me
And let the good times roll; let them make you a clown.

*  *  *

III.

But I don't care.
I want to have control.

I want a perfect body.
I want a perfect soul.

Outside, the air so soft confessing everything

And there’s a thief made of cinnamon and lemon drops.

A girl with the kaleidoscope eyes.

Along the crimson edge of the window ledge, I kiss the sky.

Everywhere I turn all the beauty just keeps shaking me

Though I know I'll never lose affection,
In my life I love you more.

So hold me close now.
And dance closer to the ones you love.
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* Poem composed of various song lyrics.  A huge hhank you so much for all of the song contributions - not all of which I was able to use - go to: Jen Maidenberg, Adam Scherr, Lisa Duggan, Bill McGeveran, Jill Wilson-Fukae, Carolyn Blanco-Losada, Maria Christiansen, Megan Williams, Peggy Excell, Rachel Mears, Marcy Felsenfeld, Tracy Spangler, Seth Spiegal, Deidra McLaughlin, Julia Kim, Lisa Stover, Duncan Rogers, David Chmiel, Kai Toews, Lara Liquori, Matt Herman, Stephanie Nasteff, Farzin Firooznia,  Drew Dix, Louis Toledo, Christine Cohen, Pam Maret, Beth Sutinis, Brooke McMurray, Rona Goldberg, Adrian Heney, Lauren Lovejoy, Stefan Zaklin, and Michael Oxman.

Book Lines All Smushed Up

I woke up in the middle of a dream, scared the world was too much for me.  The sky was almost black, but the snow shone a bright blue in the moonlight.

We were sitting in the cathedral of Notre Dame, waiting for the priest.  It amused the Crow's Eye to make them wait and pour.  Against boredom, even the gods themselves struggle in vain.  

God and whiskey got me where I am. 

Too little of one, too much of the other.

You can tell a lot just by the tiniest change in the air.  Winter comes to water as well as land, though there are no leaves to fall.  The waves that were a bright, hard blue yesterday under a fading sky today are green, opaque, and cold.  Looking deeply at the leaf, he saw clearly the presence of the sun and stars - without the sun, without light and warmth, the leaf could not exist.

"Hey! You can't be back here." I turn towards the voice. A cop, flashlight in hand, coming at me. I think about running. Even at my age, even after all this time, my first instinct is to run.