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Forum Home » High Critique » Rocket Ship People - My First Ballad

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1/2/2017 8:31:28 PM

Carolyn Fish
Posts: 12
Was feeling somewhat heartbroken when I wrote this, and had also been listening to way too much DMB. I imagine some instrumentation going along with this, so please excuse the jaunty meter, I think of this ultimately as something to be sung.

Send that message
That signal so far
Is there a tower, some beam
That could speak to that distant star
A million miles
Separated
Years on that rocket
Could get anyone jaded
We looked up as kids
That glitter caught our eyes
Stole our hearts
Spun beautiful lies
How pretty those stars were
To we who didn't know better
Now to think, we can catch those dreams?
How silly
How childish of a dream that seems
Those stars and their lovely call
Telling us they weren't really that far at all
How so very pretty they were
To we, captivated, who didn't know better
Should've known better
Years on that ship
In the dark
In the cold
In those places
Where space is
So twisted and uncontrolled
So close we come
To the warmth of that distant Sun
Cast out again
In our rocket we spin
Flung into the deep and the darkness we float again
Lost and trying to find
Blink that message out to
Some other lonely mind
Not sure it will land when we're this far out
Where words fall like feathers
The silence a deafening shout
How so very pretty those stars still are
We do know better
But will still go so far
Through that crystal wall
Cold
Never ending
Straight into those glittering flames
Heart rending
Should've known better
Will never know better
What code is that beaming
That we could know better
God knows we try
Though our message lost
In that vacuum between where our signal gets tossed
about
Battered and broken
Words bridging the void just
To never be spoken
Its meaning we dance
about
We were taught so much better
Why don't we do better
Than flying alone
Should be cruising the stars together
How loud
How big
Should that signal be
Put a tower on the moon
If it'll call you to me
To visit those glittering specks we admired
Validate and make real that to which we aspired
Lost a wing?
Here take mine
May take a while, but we'll get there in time
Better late than never
Seeing wonders together
Than spinning out, fuel down low, lost to forever
There is a better
Not hard to do better
Sift through the noise
For that message to weather
The chaos, the static, the cosmic melee
So two rockets can find
One another
And play
In the glittering warmth of some star far away.
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1/3/2017 9:04:00 AM

Doug Vinson
Posts: 102
Dave Matthews turns 50 in 6 days. If a song, would you have a refrain about knowing/doing better? Life seems pretty chaotic here on earth, compared to how it would be - how it would have to be - for true interstellar travel.
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1/3/2017 3:02:49 PM

Carolyn Fish
Posts: 12
Yeah it's not exactly perfect as far as having a very formal refrain, mostly the "doing/knowing/should've done" better sections act as a loose refrain. I wrote this poem as a metaphor for 2 lovers fighting and unable to communicate with each other, and all the miscommunication, distractions of daily life, stubborness, expectations acting as barriers to receiving/sending our messages in a way that can be understood. The loneliness of space, for me, illustrates the loneliness of of being physically close to someone and yet absolutely unable to communicate effectively.
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1/9/2017 1:48:22 PM

Graphite Drug
Posts: 81
Many poets begin by using capitals for each line and using lines and convenient punctuation for what they assume is poetic meter. I'm not sure that is what is happening here, but it is easy for readers to get lost. Something to experiment with may be use of stanzas. For instance:
Send that message
That signal so far
Is there a tower, some beam
That could speak to that distant star?

A million miles, separated
Years on that rocket
Could get anyone jaded
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