You took me to your favourite place
To see the tree they cut down ten years before your birth.
Our fingers traced its history
We brushed our hands back in time through centuries
Memories are mapped out by lines we’ll trace;
Ashen faces in cold breeze
Tell me a piece of your history.
Speak in words you’ve picked up
As you walked through life alone
Shrugging off the dust and memory,
You ran out into the night
To see what it means to be free
Of the shackles and the dreams.
Summer evening breeze blew –
They will come for you
Standing on the cliff face
We are the last people.
At the end of the night,
In the cold morning light
They will come
The birds are mocking me, calling out your name
They pull me back.
All of your flaws lie hand in hand deep beneath the ground
Dig them up, leave a path to trace
I see in the shapes of the morning we’ve cast out
I see them sinking in, it crept up on you, crawling underneath your skin.
Oh, I hear you calling, but what is there to gain?
I won’t show my face.
They licked the walls, all that we’ve amassed – stubs, tops, backs, diaries –
Shattered into ash.
Tenderly, they turned to dust all that I adore
Many days fell away with nothing to show,
It’s been cold for years.
Oh, I read the words you used.
They told me nothing.
…
I wrote this poem using someone else’s words. Not one word was thought up by me. What I did do was take the lyrics from Bastille‘s album Bad Blood and rearrange the words to make this poem. There is at least one line from every song on the album in this poem. I thought it would be cool to reconfigure Bastille’s songs into a poetic narrative poem. Really, I’m just highlighting the creativity and lyricism already present in the songs. I wonder what it would sound like played…
I’m thinking about making this a feature on my blog. You should check out the album. My favourites are:
Daniel In The Den
Oblivion
Things We Lost In The Fire
and Overjoyed (I prefer the a cappella version)
