2010-05-01 Archive, Poetry, Songs

I wrote the following in 2007 in response to someone on the poetry thread on Meg Cabot's message boards.

“How does it feel?” I hear your words.
“How does it feel to write poetry?”
How does it feel? I ask myself.
But I should be asking someone else.

How does it feel, young David,
Lover of stars, keeper of sheep?
How does it feel to stand in the middle,
Surrounded by brothers,
While some old man, the prophet of God,
Pours oil on your head,
‘Till it runs down your neck?
Then he opens his mouth and changes your life
With the words,
“Thus says the Lord, you shall be king.”
And here you are, years later,
Running for life, hiding in caves,
Chased by three thousand.
How does it feel to be running away,
A spear throw from death,
When the words come,
And enter your mind:

“The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want …,
Though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death
I fear no evil,
For You are with me.”

How does it feel, writer of psalms?
Did you eat up the words?
Or chew them well, to memorize them?
Because, God knows,
You did not have
a pen and parchment
To write them down,
while running.

Writing poetry, to me anyway, is somewhat like playing Tetris. I get a rhythm running in my head, then I start writing a (small) cloud of phrases that fit that rhythm, and then the phrases fall into a pattern of meaning which fits the rhythm, and I move them around to make the meaning clearer, and to get them to rhyme if possible.

An acquaintance of mine expressed an interest recently in poetry for church songs, so I sent several things to him, including the following:

Risen to Glory, version 5, 04/25/2010

Foretold by prophets, born in a stable,
Greeted by Angels, Jesus is here.
Risen to Glory, eternal power,
Jesus and God will always be near.

Heaven above us, Jesus around us,
He is the glory, given by God.
Therefore my brother be the more steadfast,
Always abound in work for the Lord.

Jesus is living, raised by God's power,
One day he's coming back for us all.
Some will be sleeping, some will be watching,
We will be waiting, hearing His call.

In just a moment, at the last trumpet,
We shall be changed in (the) blink of an eye.
Death will be swallowed (by) vict'ry forever,
We will come home to heaven on high.


And just this morning I sent this to him.

Version 3, 5/1/2010

Once there was God,
Outside of time,
Waiting in stillness, He knew what to say.
"Let there be light,"
Then there was light,
Shining through darkness to make the first day.

Once was the Word,
He was with God,
God became man, and He showed us the way.
Jesus, our Lord,
Died in our stead,
God's love for all who will truly obey.

Living to serve,
Serving to live,
We are the hands and the voice of our Lord.
He is in us,
We are in Him,
Power of God for those true to His Word.

Glory of God,
Savior of Man,
Jesus is ready, his angels to send.
Heaven awaits,
Those who are true,
Holding the faith of our Lord to the end.

But I'm wondering if it isn't a bit too abstract and impersonal. It is certainly not a first-person experience sort of story. At least the rhythm is consistent.

I get kind of distracted by songs which have a complicated and inconsistent rhythm --- the kind that were originally written to have a lot of instrumentals filling in the blanks. When the instrumentals are redacted for acapella music, sometimes the song just doesn't work as well.