63 Things # 19.1: Song Lyrics: Whatever Happened

I’ve taken my first try at writing a song lyric. Perhaps the best I can say is that few inversions poetic does it use. (Have you ever noticed that poetry sometimes like Yoda sounds?)

Here’s the rought draft… copyright 2008 by Carl Bettis and all…

WHATEVER HAPPENED

Whatever happened to spring
in April birds used to sing
but now I don’t hear a thing
if I can’t hear it with you

What happened to all the bouquets
flowers used to be bright in May
now their colors all are gray
if I can’t see them with you

Wine has no taste
and music’s out of key
the mirror’s lost my face
there’s no place
for the guy I used to be
without you

Whatever happened to all of
those years together we dreamed of
whatever happened to love
I used to share with you
–Carl Bettis

63 things to write or write about: a change

I’ve changed #19 (in my previous post) from “A nursery rhyme” to “The lyrics to at least 3 songs.” My wife will write the tunes.

Should be a fun collaboration, as long as she realizes every syllable is sacred.

63 things to write or write about

I’ve come up with a list of 63 writing topics and/or exercises to keep myself busy. I won’t do them in order, but I plan to do them all.

1. An insane man, when he dies, leaves an insane corpse
2. Boxes
3. Job (as in Patience Of), after the restitution — can double sons and daughters compensate for those lost? If so, what does that say about Job, and about Job’s God?
4. A satiric character sketch; the subject: me
5. A panegyric; the subject: me
6. The natural and the human
7. A one-act play
8. A blessing on someone or something
9. A curse on someone or something
10. An abstract sound poem
11. A story that scares me
12. A novel of at least 50,000 words in November
13. Oracles, including logic
14. Stocks of original phrases, in multiple combinations
15. A literary dinner, like Landor’s Imaginary Conversations
16. A nonsense narrative poem, metered and rhymed
17. A 3-dimensional poem (or 4-dimensional, kinetic rather than static)
18. A form based on the numbers 3, 7 and 9, and incorporating them in the subject matter
19. A nursery rhyme the lyrics to at least 3 songs
20. A man who is stuck behind his face, looking out at the world
21. At least 7 shaped poems
22. A clown poem
23. Word art with poetry and collage; at least three examples
24. An expressionist poem, with expressive punctuation, spelling and grammar
25. Two cubist writings each in four genres: poetry, fiction, essay, drama; in each genre, one work to be analytic cubism and one synthetic cubism
26. From point of view of a mythical creature, e.g. a faun, a centaur
27. An alchemical text
28. A web app poem (combinatoric renga?)
29. An automatic or visionary poem, or visionquest poem
30. A meditation on a sacred text
31. A poem on a work of art
32. Shroudsourcing
33. A scientific law or mathematical axiom: what it means to us, why we legislated it
34. A poem of at least nine lines, in which each line contains, at minimum, one modifier, one “ing” word, and one “to be” verb
35. A love poem to someone I’ve never met
36. Choose a favorite poem; write a counter-poem, expressing an opposing point of view
37. “Translate” a story from an ancient manuscript, in which passages are lost, illegible, ambiguous or untranslatable
38. “Discover” 7 to 9 poems in the person of a poet who died at least 300 years ago
39. At least 3 flash fictions without any element of the fantastic
40. Write as quickly as possible, without stopping, for one hour
41. Time, its accelerations, retardations, and varieties: personal, historical, cosmic, clock, spiritual
42. Write a piece with no helping words – a, of, the, and so on – only substantives and modifiers
43. Write a piece, then replace all adjectives and adverbs with nouns and verbs
44. Write a short piece, and expand it by free-associating on each substantive; repeat until the whole piece is at least ten pages long
45. Write a poem of at least 40 lines; pare it down to no more than three lines, while expressing the same thing
46. A creation myth
47. An end of the world myth
48. A Christmas story
49. Stream-of-consciousness (but not my consciousness)
50. Description of a person as a festival or ceremony
51. Renga prose (narrative?)
52. Against measure (number, weight & measure)
53. Professionalism and amateurism
54. Interiority Complex
55. The god of leisure
56. 50 pages about 5 minutes
57. A prose poem incorporating a drawing (but not a rebus)
58. An epistolary poem
59. A sermon, a prayer, and the meditation of an unrepentant sinner
60. A chance topic, selected by choosing a word at random from a book
61. After all sex (or would that be “after-all sex”?)
62. A week of dreams
63. What happened when I died