I'd love it. It's poetry, after all.

True.

This one's self-explanatory. We have a killer version of it on tape, but alas, I basically melt down at the end. Not easy for me to sing without melting down. It's in D-modal tuning. It was written in 1977 or thereabouts.

Ghosts

At the edge of a couple of vodka and limes
I am spinning out reasons and offering rhymes
and the alleys that run from the stage to the door
are built for the dead man and lit for the poor

And brown-eyes, oh brown-eyes, where the hell did you go
where the hell have you gone
why in hell don't I know?
And I would like the answer to a question or two
How in hell can I possibly go on without you?

In the back room, the boys crack a bottle and sing
and the radio's going while the telephone rings - it keeps on ringing
and it isn't my problem and it isn't my cue
but the whole conversation is centred on you

Such as: brown-eyes, oh brown-eyes, that mad little man
with the smile that bewitched and the lopsided hands
and they don't like to ask me but they do want to know
where the hell has he gone? Where in hell did he go?

And the gallery's haunted, appeasing your shade
and the rafters still shaking from the notes that got played
we both tried to repair it, we both tried to please
but the dust is still falling on the black and white keys

and brown-eyes, oh brown-eyes I still can't believe
that I'd pick up and go, that you'd pack up and leave
with the distance between us, as you leave me behind
I am fractured and broken, in the darkness, and blind.

And the ghost in my room is the ghost in my eyes
and they say that a rose without water eventually dies (eventually, supposedly)
And the renaissance woman, the study in blue
is the woman whose dreams were all locked up in you

and brown-eyes, I'd give everything that I own
just to taste your tequila slip soft through the phone
But alone with my anger, I'll tie one more on
and pretend I'm alive
when I know that you're gone.

Oh my. That's heartbreaking. And intense. And beautiful.

Oh, deb.

Oh, lovely Deb, both of them. That last one is heart-wrenching.

Yep. The heart definitely had a bend in it when I wrote that. Next lyrics up will be "Zoo in Heaven", another pissy little song about rock and roll. I sense a theme in my own history. And I love this thread, I do, even though it occurs to me I may be using it in a way that's rather uncomfortably close to creative masturbation, at the moment.

Teppy, new topic today?

You know, I was just thinking about that!

I think I am going to go with the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.

So, challenge #21 (group of people looking down) is closed.

Challenge #22: bells. Silver, Southern, Jingle -- whatever. Have at it!

Oh God, Deb, "Ghosts" is just heartbreaking. I'd love to hear this one sung, but it reads beautifully right here like this.

Oooh, bells. Off to think.

Notre Dame, 1990

"Chacun doit partir de la tour de cloche, s'il vous plait."

I took my time. Paris was bathed in sunlight, mist rising off the Seine. From up here, the City of Light was mine.

"Chacun doit partir...."

Halfway down the narrow ancient stairway, I understood the danger.

The first bells shook the building, deep-voiced, plangent, angry - a fist to the skull. I covered my ears, tried to run.

The carillon took my feet out from under me. Sitting hard, I bumped down three flights.

Safe in the nave, I blotted blood from my nose, wondering how Quasimodo had survived.

The Cruelest Month

I don't like September.

September, for me, is the month of loss, heartbreak, tragedy, bad news. The year begins its march toward the darkness of winter, the sun begins a retreat, my life falls apart.

Eve died in September; three years old, falling off a high hill. It left me crippled for 18 months, that fall; it left her gone.

My father lost his leg in September, a blood clot, thrombosis, the long slide into death too soon.

N died in September, and history stopped and began again.

September, to me, is bad history, sweet bells jangling out of tune.