Learning Rock Star Posts: 7.676
Joined: 14-June 08
From: Odense, Denmark
I've suddenly hit a vein of inspiration when it comes to words, so I've been writing a bit again. I wanted to share 4 pieces that I've read to some music.The songs are just royalty free music off of YouTube. Let me know what you think!
Written formats below.
I Was Here
Spoiler:
“I was here” (1st of January, 2023)
Copenhagen is strangely porous today. The city embraces me in its well-oiled infrastructure. The oblivious machine grabs hold of me, chews on my ragged brain, then spits me out again. I plummet endlessly through the all too-familiar surroundings; crumbling buildings with mundane masonry or eclectic architecture (that house nothing but hollow human husks); and I fall from who I was sure I had become these days back to a time littered with stories of a mythical potential for heroism; one that never grew big enough to forge the bravery needed for me to conquer the world, and through the bloody battles I only ever lost sight of the dreams that once built this fortress, which now just accommodates the lonely tales of what-could-have-beens, stories about forced compliance, the hope of many a you-can-do-it and the battle cry of social workers: "why don't you try again? You’re young and intelligent!". The only possible outcome was me losing this war and being left near death in the bloodshed of the battlefield.
Now I'm a veteran lost in the web of thoughts in my own head, with a detrimental self-harmful taste for wandering the endless trenches of unfinished projects and works that just so happen to nourish the pitch-black void in my mind, where inspiration must once have planted its sole seed.
The branches don’t grow in the obsidian gloom, and I have yet to find a torch that can light these hallways without igniting the fumes that drench the air with that illusive motivation; the flames will always burn bright while they devour every word and sentence over and over, again and again, cliché-ridden and in a blaze of glory. Silence and blackness eclipses the blissful radiance and history repeats ad nauseam.
The valkyries have long since abandoned me, yet I keep meandering these corridors in stygian solitude, and while the pages are too often left blank, voiceless and mute, they still hungrily howl for affection.
Perhaps I should just write graffiti on a wall somewhere in the city: “I was here!” That's quite a lot easier than making an impact on the world.
The Diet of Muses: A Misread Recipe
Spoiler:
The Diet of Muses: A Misread Recipe (30th of January, 2023)
I have force-fed my brain mouthwatering inspiration for far too long; 7-course feasts with delightful phrases and exquisite expressions, too many second dinners and too much indulging in desserts when already full. I have stuffed my mind with honey glazed verbs and deep fried superlatives, and it has become overweight and immobile, unable to move through my pencil onto the impatient paper. The graphite artery is always obstructed and clogged with nothing pulsing through its restricted veins.
Even though the pen often glistens and shines; from all the melted fat of the filthy steaks it has literally ingested, served up with a side-dish of sugar coated truths falling on my deafened ears, I kept swallowing whole my own false validation that may just have been crummy excuses to write nothing at all. I never stopped to wonder what the diet of Muses even consists of. It seems I am not half as well-read as I am mis-read.
I have been perverse with my inspiration for far too long; pig-sized portions instead of healthy nonsense and word-salad. I miss being 5 years old, and I miss Barney and Friends.
Follow the Goddamn Rabbit
Spoiler:
FOLLOW THE GODDAMN RABBIT (6th of February, 2023)
I am curious by nature, and I've wanted to dive into every rabbit hole that I've come across, but I am not sure I would fit anymore.
I've been told curiosity kills cats, and I have already spent eight of my lives waiting to dive in, so how could I risk my ninth and final one?
Eagerness easily turns reckless, so I better carefully weigh up my options to find the one that fits, and hope the moment doesn't pass me by.
So, Wonderland can wait another day; the White Rabbit is way too disorganized, and it's better I just pretend to not be home if he comes knocking on my door.
Yes! Instead I should sit and ponder in silence, let my thoughts bounce against the off-white walls and their monotony, and maybe later I can reminisce my long lost naivety.
"This is life at its best!" they say, and I'm almost sure of it too, so I measure up my premises, and I perimeter in my wanderlust to these boundaries, and plant my flag in this soil where only venom could ever grow.
I fill the rabbit holes in my backyard with concrete and cement, and fake a smile to the sound of suburban cars and sticky new tarmac; Yes, let my legacy be that of lifeless outdoor tiles!
Urgh! It sticks to my feet and I don't like it at all! The sound rubs itself against the walls of my mind, tunnels through my cranium, and lets my psyche out, so it can growl at this counterfeit me.
"This is living, isn't it?" they say, but I'm not quite so sure of it; If so, perhaps I should question my sanity more often, and just follow the White Rabbit down his rabbit hole.
It seems I've buried my childlike sense of wonder beneath mortgages and equity, commonplace customaries and stale conversations about capital, and I've grown to be mundane and characterless.
I should have invested in myself instead of brick and mortar.
A Mind in Deterioration: Thoughts on the Balance between Emptiness and the Ingenuity of Solemn Strongholds
Spoiler:
A Mind in Deterioration: Thoughts on the Balance between Emptiness and the Ingenuity of Solemn Strongholds.
Emptiness can be such an unrelenting force; I do not understand how it can grow so vigorously and with such hardened determination on the dull and low-calorie diet of vacuums and hollows; so I often wonder if I should trust this growing intangible chasm, seducing me in its comforting embrace of little to no outside impressions or stimulus, while it can somehow still find nutrition in my isolation.
However, I like the endlessly resonating echoes of all my unspoken thoughts reverberating and reflecting on the walls of these abandoned foyers and vacant chambers as their thunderous ringing occupies my otherwise pointless intellect.
My own knowledge is power in this place, and though knowledge can grow stale with negligence, leading corrosion and rot to the wooden framework and dream-carrying pipes within my dreamscape, I find it to have unlimited significance here, where the confines of my mind have infinite dimensions that hold immeasurable amounts of meaning without ever overflowing these non-existent bounds of my castle in the sky.
…and so my ethereal exile rarely grows heavy or cumbersome, In fact, just quite the opposite; it lessens in mass by every dream that unfolds, and hovers ever higher in delicate fashion with graceful ease.
Yet the passage to this imaginary realm is a string tied to the back of my head, invisible to most other people, hidden in the curly locks and wavy strands of my hair, and I fear that one day the string will snap under the strain of all the social constructs, norms and expectations weighing me down.
If I could no longer visit my hallowed sanctuary, and If I could no longer hear the enchanting psalms echo through the corridors and hallways, then the emptiness I fear the most would forever outweigh the ingenuity of my solemn stronghold.
Learning Rock Star Posts: 7.676
Joined: 14-June 08
From: Odense, Denmark
Thank you, Todd! I enjoy writing more again, but it's also poking to some of the "darker" feelings that were sleeping somewhere very deep within that I sort of felt I'd gotten locked away good. Opening Pandora's box in a way.
But I'm enjoying it and it's good to exercise some lyrics writing abilities too!
GMC:er Posts: 25.297
Joined: 23-December 09
From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
I think this is a great way to explore the soul and maybe find some great lyrics. The well that one draws from can be anything and it's best if it's deep and complicated imho. I think there are several songs/albums worth of material here. I hope you dive in and create some great lyrics
Todd
QUOTE (Storm Linnebjerg @ Feb 11 2023, 09:49 AM)
Thank you, Todd! I enjoy writing more again, but it's also poking to some of the "darker" feelings that were sleeping somewhere very deep within that I sort of felt I'd gotten locked away good. Opening Pandora's box in a way.
But I'm enjoying it and it's good to exercise some lyrics writing abilities too!
Learning Tone Master Posts: 2.324
Joined: 12-July 13
From: Bucharest, Romania
This is awesome Ben!!! Your voice, the words and the music that you have chosen, create a great mix. BTW I like the dark atmosphere that you mentioned in our messages. You should keep doing this, because you are very talented.
Learning Rock Star Posts: 7.676
Joined: 14-June 08
From: Odense, Denmark
QUOTE (Todd Simpson @ Feb 12 2023, 03:16 AM)
I think this is a great way to explore the soul and maybe find some great lyrics. The well that one draws from can be anything and it's best if it's deep and complicated imho. I think there are several songs/albums worth of material here. I hope you dive in and create some great lyrics
Todd
Yeah, I am thinking I could use some of the lines or settings for lyrics as well. That's been my thinking anyway.
QUOTE (Monica Gheorghevici @ Feb 12 2023, 09:03 PM)
This is awesome Ben!!! Your voice, the words and the music that you have chosen, create a great mix. BTW I like the dark atmosphere that you mentioned in our messages. You should keep doing this, because you are very talented.
Thank you! Yes, it's dark, but I like a bit of darkness I will try to keep writing - a lot of people have told me in the last 15 years that I should write more - and also that I should record audio books, but it's sometimes hard to find the energy.
Learning Rock Star Posts: 7.676
Joined: 14-June 08
From: Odense, Denmark
Two more, slightly different style for one of them. "365 Christmas Dinners" was written as a 10-minute kinda exercise to just write and not think too much, this first one was a little more thought through but also possibly more so pulled on some heartstrings...
The "Lost and Found" of a Café in the Southern Parts of France.
Should our eyes meet across the room of some cafe in the southern parts of France, I don't think we would recognize each other anymore. You have changed, aged and become just a fabled creature in my foolish imagination.
Should our eyes meet across the sea of time and years that have washed over us, I don't know if I would have the courage to brave the waters solely on the basis of that tiny glimpse of familiarity and worn-out old memories.
I have seen you in my dreams too many times by now, but for each passing one your face gets more and more blurry and blends further with the tides and the currents that seperate us across this ocean of hours, days, months, years and decades.
If our eyes one day meet across this chasm, I'd squint to focus my recollection and wonder if I knew you from somewhere in my dreams or perhaps from a French cafe. I have no way of knowing if you recognize me at all anymore, as I've aged and changed and lost myself a million times.
So I get up and leave the cafe and regret just about everything I've ever done, but I continue to walk out of there and never look back again, untill one day I think about all the pieces of myself that I've lost throughout the years, and I walk back to the cafe and hope that our hands would meet while searching...
...the lost-and-found box they keep for worn-out old memories.
-----------------------
"365 Christmas Dinners"
I got dressed up yesterday and it wasn't even Halloween or anything spectacular, but I put on my jeans, my smile and a hairstyle that's probably outdated, 'cause that's just how it is some days, most days, all days, every day. I guess it could be Halloween, 'cause time is somewhat irrelevant to me; time is for other people and their important dates in calendars on noticeboards, or on their kitchen whiteboards, where fridge magnets that spell silly words aren't considered proper.
So, I got stressed out today, and I am not even out of bed yet, but my anxiety will have to wait till some other day when time has slowed down again; 'cause right now my time is for other people and their expectations and their dates, their empty arguments of "that's how it is, it's just how it's done" and it's not my time, I'm told. And now theft of life quality and painted-on smiles are considered proper, and that's the same as yesterday, but at least tomorrow will also be the same.
Roll on the Christmas dinners and birthdays, 'cause it's just one day of the year that you have to spend with the dread and despair, it's not so bad, come on, now! And the Christmas dinners take up the whole year and the calendar is filled with birthdays that aren't mine, 'cause it's never my birthday, it's just another christmas dinner. 365 Christmas dinners and people. I want to spend my birthday on my own, but it's never my birthday, it's just another christmas dinner, all days are people and christmas dinners and it's all irrelevant to me.
“Success is not obtained overnight. It comes in instalments; you get a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow until the whole package is given out. The day you procrastinate, you lose that day's success.”
I will try to keep writing - a lot of people have told me in the last 15 years that I should write more - and also that I should record audio books, but it's sometimes hard to find the energy.
