Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:45:02 +0000
I wrote this as a song for 50/90, a brilliant songmaking community that really deserves its own post. I worked on the song a good few days, only to realise that it really kinda stood on its own as a poem of sorts. I am no poet, but occasionally even that doesn’t stop me.
Summer’s a thing that doesn’t like to
fit nicely into words, it’s got too
much heat, it is too grand
but all the same, my clumsy hands
will set it down in shabby verse
words put no shillings in my purse, yet
I’m compelled to put to song
impressions of a day bright, long
and hot, to relate properly,
all I taste and smell and see
to gather up some adjectives,
scramble and see what it gives:
brilliant, bright, unceasing, aching,
muggy, restless, languid, baking,
and more, yes, more than I can bear
to offer the sun’s unblinking stare, there’s:
Humid: means it’s hotter still, that
brutal heat that steals my will
to move, and makes it bally hard
to venture more than half a yard, or
think of being productive
and sun that always somehow gives
me sunburn, even when I wear a lot
of sunscreen, and it gets so hot
sometimes I can hardly breath
the coffeeshop has some reprieve, in
contrast, why, it’s almost chilly
friends come in, out, willy-nilly, I show
off my burn to exclamations and we
face the heat with trepidation, but
back at home there’s salve within, the
kiss of aloe on my skin, the
dear relief, all cool and sweet, the
hours passed in grueling heat seems a
battle won, a dream that’s past, when
summer fruits make my repast, while
breezes wing around the eaves
I search about for cool green leaves
to shade me while I take a sleep
and lull me into perfect deep
contentment, ’till I wake again
to find the sun, now like a friend, has
covered me in dappled light
a last warm kiss before the night, my
lullaby the soothing hum of
insects as dear sunset comes with
cooling wind and soothing rain
pitter-patter on the pane
night’s comforting refrain,
before we wake to sun again.