These steel wings under my direction, This flying fortress, Styled in camouflage sheen, They once meant freedom to me, Symbols of our fight against fascism,
But after that night, That mission,
When I saw those fiery roses emerge, Streets erupting in hellfire, Becoming flowerbeds of sulphur and rubble, I could almost hear screams over the turbines, Hundreds of little ants amidst the blaze,
I felt that we became world-enders that night, Warmongers rather than liberators,
We won that war, But when those souls look up, They will see us in the clouds, And feel fear, Not freedom.
That lyre, Apollos hand-me-down, An instrument of antiquity, That sound, Each tone more shrill than the last, Thundercracks across string, I hate it, I hate those aural pangs,
They scrape across my cranium, Nails upon chalk, Leaving invisible scars, There is nothing divine about this sound, No virtue from its turtle shell frame, It is a miserable dirge of angst, Plucked free by the fingers of demons, Inflicting naught but malady.
The mirror lies, I swear it, It’s very sheen rippling with deceit, Or perhaps malice, It insults me with that foul image, A reflection of some miscreation, Is that who I am? That creature, Are those my eyes? Those unfeeling oculi, But I foolishly believed myself a man, A higher primate, A lie like a million glass shards, Bad luck for a lifetime, Denying my own monstrosity, A crisis of the very self, Carrying oneself as a somebody, While being a nothing of a ghoul.
The page spits in my face, Goblets of verse striking my cheeks, The lamps grow dim, The night drags on, I’m on the backfoot, The prose is fighting back, It shrieks back in subtext, Spite in every drop of ink,
The characters rising up in protest, Letters as torches and pitchforks, Punctuation as hidden blades, This mass of written flesh, It rages against its own conception, This is no poetic creation, But an adversary, An abomination.
Hope, It’s said to shine, To glitter in luminescent butterflies, Shades of all prisms, It’s a currency we spend to continue our days, A penny a day keeps despair at bay,
Hope, It’s said to glimmer, A diamond in your minds eye, A beacon in the black, The light at the end of a morose tunnel, A reason to tread through another day,
Of course ofttimes it’s just a cheap bulb, A train at the end of that tunnel, Or perhaps it’s a marksman’s scope, A trick of the sun, Hope and optimism are manmade farces, Reality is rarely so idyllic.
Welcome to the first of a new century of Harlequins writing music posts! How are you all? It’s great to see you. It’s been a fairly uneventful week for me at the asylum this time. I’ve been keeping myself busy with my writing of course, but also a particularly amazing new video game release called Tales of Arise. Absolutely loving it so far. I’d recommend it to anybody that enjoys good old fashioned JRPGS. Yes, I’m still a gaming nerd. No, I’m not sorry.
So, anyways, enough about video games. You’re here for the writing music right? The Harlequins writing music that is! Did anybody see the clue for todays theme? I did post it a bit later than usual today I’m afraid. But regardless, did anybody guess it? Well, todays musical theme today is Europe!
Ahh yes! The home of the European Union and one of the great melting pots of the world. Arguably the birthplace of this modern world we all share. Industrial revolutions, political upheaval, cultural phenomena and grave wars. These things and more have shaped this continent and its many nations in countless ways. The various peoples and cultures of the continent all have their own ways and beliefs, and this translates to their music. Even in the same genre, music from one nation can be vastly different from another. They all have their own identities, derived from their respective histories. So, obviously I’m not going to be able to share a band or artist from each European nation. As much as I’d like to, that would be a herculean feat. So instead I’m going to share five of my favourites from the continent and leave the door open for other potential lists in the near future. Sound good? I’m very glad!
So, join me as we delve into the musical minds of Eurocentric artists the…. continent over?
And there we have it for another musical list! Did any of those artists take your fancy? Well, I suggest giving them all a try, they all deserve your time. Can you guess which European nation each of these artists comes from? And don’t just cheat by reading the website links! That’s naughty! A couple of them may even surprise you, to be honest.
So, let’s have some good old fashioned British social media nonsense! The asylum has a page over on Facebook, an account on Twitter and an account over on Instagram. Please follow me over on those pages too, it really helps! Also, if you really enjoy what I do here at the asylum, please consider supporting me over on the Ko-Fi page. Thanks for everything!
Until next week my friends, have a very crazy day inmates!
You know that old tale, Tale as old as time, Boy meets girl, Boy compliments girl, Girl thanks him politely, Girl continues with her life, Boy thinks about it for days, Boy gets obsessed, Boys mind gets grimmer, Boy stalks girl for months, If boy can’t have girl nobody can,
Boy sees girl again, Girl does not know, Girl has had a long day, Boy follows girl home, Girl has a shower, Boy peers in through the shades, Boy readies a claw hammer, And the rest, As they say, Is history, Criminal history.
Some of us escape society, Canines of every shade and shape, Runaway hounds and beasts, Shredding our way out of vanilla cages, Longing to run with more wild packs, Individuals with no collars,
We’re bad dogs, Authority wants us on a leash, Normality reaches out with nets, But we tore off those fingers, And ran free, Slavering and howling,
Daily life becoming wildlife, Dodging slings and dog whistles, Animal control in public form, We follow sweet scents of unrestraint, Tonight we are not docile pets, But wolves on the run.
In my dreams, I often take off in astral form, Cheered on by stadiums of stars, Off like a spectral rocket, As I soar through the cosmos, Skip, Zoom, I take snapshots of the constellations, Spying their empyrean forms, Proving their fabled existence, They dance sprightly about as I pass, I’m an astrological tourist tonight,
I have flown so far already, But there are more sights to see, I stop for lunch upon the rings of Saturn, Watching a show lightyears away, A medical drama, Starring the ministrations of Jupiter and Neptune, They keep trying to revive Pluto, Rambling onwards, The sun is calling to me, As I approach my eyes grow heavy, The solar rays declare morning, This astral vacation was over.
An unknown contagion afflicts me, Interests no longer interest me, Voids are appearing in my brain, Areas of interest fading to nothing, Neurons stashing away my will, Like my own brain in open rebellion, Lining up my blindfolded diversions, Against a blood-strewn wall, And snuffing them out one by one, The inside of my skull, I don’t recognise it, It’s a wasteland, The voids spread, Making me a hollow man, I begin to consider surrender, Too far gone.
