The Arcade Fire Funeral Memory

A band called The Arcade Fire came out with Funeral in 2004, one of my all-time favorite albums. This is my tribute to the music and the memories it elicits. One section for each song (10), but they flow as one.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

 

A golden hymn

tripping over asphalt

turns and twists

black pools spotted like eyes,

winding wavy ovals

into parked flow streams,

remembrance of green belts.

 

Change my lead to gold

and grow higher,

sleep in my head

like a day grown dim.

 

Trace the colors,

trace the inside

of a voice sung

in sunken memory,

like the wind

pushing sound from light leaves

traces my ears inside the lines

and pushes me back to her outline,

her shadow discolored in black,

stars I strain to see at night.

 

Not envy but empty

chords recreate memory, solo

records a tribute to time gone,

a part from her sea,

land locked and dehydrating,

withering like a rainy day

to green dust.

 

Neighborhood #1 (Laika)

 

Steady notes play on monotones

and she is all I see

as my smooth peak

lowers in recollection.

 

Une Annee Sans Lumiere

 

Shadows of sight sink

and swim in the dim lake

of memory collections.

 

A vision of a rock steady

I sit and watch and waste.

 

Aura glinted my green eyes,

a slow spectacle of curved vision

and remains today a spark

of curiosity and pining for returns.

 

Through music.

Through an image.

Anything.

I am always there.

 

Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

 

Take this small splice of time

and stretch its sides.

 

Incase the liquid in glass,

form the tracing flies

and molding puffy white

clouds shrunken in a mid-March sky.

 

Raise a glass in magnification

and slumber

beside the comfort of such purity.

 

Neighborhood #4 (Kettles)

Sooth me with Susan’s voice,

her trailing slurred speech,

the pitch of her wings through wind,

the tone of bright eyes,

dark brunet and sympathetic.

 

Slow and smooth motions

of eye lids blinking dark screens,

sleight motions of straight lines

from my sight to her

that stay an eye’s length away.

 

Her sharpened fire cuts the black night,

and boils my chest to hot water

that singes my veins to a rolling boil.

 

The heat spews steam like kettles

through my thoughts in saunas

and drowns the sound of their form.

 

But I blistered and calloused

and live in dead skin cells,

and any day could come to be

again, she will come to me

again, I will speak and shield her heat.

 

Crown Of Love

 

Susan, if you want me, please,

forgive me for not saying

anything when you were with me.

 

I strummed my strings and found

an empty sound,

an ache of anxiety waking me

in nervous sweaty sheets covering like regret.

 

Wake Up

 

An older sight,

torn up and colder,

has more nostalgia

for a rusting memory.

 

Tell me it’s a lie

and I’ll adjust.

 

Dancing pictures

spotty and slurring

like an intoxication

of endorphins.

 

Haiti

 

Smooth water dripping down streams

in flows of clear reflections,

a playful sunlight curtaining off creek beds

and swerving bright uncolored spots

around my instinct and sight.

 

A sunny day in mid-March

sits on a rusting rock,

watches and wastes

my sight away to memory.

 

Calmed in slight moments pictured and shuttered,

I caught a slim photograph captured and without many burns.

 

Rebellion (Lies)

 

I close my lying eyes to dream and be saved by night,

a progression like water back to a river mouth,

every time I close in a dream slips through a crack

broken by my steady faults and sulkily unrepaired.

 

Without water I think and dream

in solitude and singularities,

a sight of someone I think I would love,

memory of near perfect days

hid underneath the covers.

 

In The Backseat

 

The ending and hopeful progression

to another high note.

Author's Note

I wrote this while listening to the CD, and each section I wrote while listening to that specific song. If you haven't heard the CD, well, I would suggest you buy/download it, as it was up for alternative album of the year at the Grammy's and has some really profound lyrics. I actually just added the first and ninth songs to my playlist on my homepage (the two that especially inspired me to write this), so give them a listen and see whether that affects the way you read the poem.

It's long, is it too long? Do the sections flow well? What suggestions would you make to smooth it out, if any? Help me on this one, I'm quite interested in its development.

Reviews

[Kelly Scheppers]

Travis, I'm not familiar with the CD to make a constructive comment, but if you wrote this while listening to it...that, in itself, is very impressive!

To be perfectly honest with you, I shy away from lengthy reads....I typically try to write at a minimum, so not to divert the reader's eyes to the bottom of the page. But that's just me. You do what works best for YOU!

Your content is always striking to me, and I believe you are quite gifted!

My best,
Kelly

[Jamie]

The imagery in this piece is incredible. You should be really proud of your work.

[Brenda Sue]

Very well done. Great job.

[Antigone]

I love your choice of words. Amazing.

[Alicia Isabella Lane]

WOW Travis, of all your works I have read, I believe this is by far my favorite! Masterful! Insightful and genius. I keep rereading it, absorbing it. Simply amazing!!!

[Erin Phoenix]

I think everyone is right.

This is great.

The flow is nice and it is a wonderful tribute.

:)

[TL Boehm]

Beautifully written. I haven't heard the CD - but I am sure this poem does it justice. Great imagery in this piece.

[poddar kushal]

it is a fitting tribute though i've not heard of them, the poem is in itself a masterpiece

[Lyra H]

Amazing imagery!

[Adam Jordan Turner]

After a first read I really enjoyed the poem and I think the concept is incredible. Once again, the descriptiveness here is stellar. And I believe that nothing is too long as long as there is meaning to back it up. Even if it only means something to you. However, since you are interested in it's development(so am I), I will download the album and listen to it and then go back to this piece and give my extended review. I love discovering new music so thank you for sharing. Very nice write.

[Vince]

Oh this is definitely a great album. At first I thought you were posting the lyrics for everyone to see, but that was before I read it. It could be the lyrics for their next album! Neon Bible was quite strange. Their first album was hard to top though. Glad to see you can write something like this for them. I get inspired by music all the time, not as much as this though! Usually it's one line of lyrics to spawn a piece for me.

My god, "Wake Up" is such a good song. Can't really say it's too long since it's pretty much one piece for each song. Didn't see anything wrong with the transitions either. Thanks for sharing!