Runner in the Rain
Riders on the storm.
Riders on the storm.
Into this house we’re born.
Into this world we’re thrown.
Like a dog without a bone,
An actor out on loan.
Riders on the storm. – The Doors
I only put these lyrics in the post because as I was working on the picture, those lines kept running through my head. They started with “Runner in the Rain…” and eventually morphed into Riders on the Storm. I never did quite understand that penultimate line: An actor out on loan, but I do now, sort of.
The similar line from a Dylan song comes to mind… I was born here and I’ll die here, against my will. It may seem like I’m movin’ but I’m perfectly still. Every nerve in my body, is wracked with pain…
And it got me to thinking about modern poetry. Because my images have been used for a lot of poetry magazines I get to read a lot of modern poetry and it still annoys me that they refuse to write in rhyme. How do these guys expect me to remember the words if they don’t rhyme? I remember tons of lyrics that I was exposed to as a kid by Robert Frost, or Dylan, or Poe. But I can’t remember any lines from the non-rhyming poetry I’ve been reading – even though some of the poems I read every day. Don’t they want us to remember how the poems go? And besides not rhyming – I can’t even find a meter in many of these new fangled poems. Just one of those things that I just don’t get I guess. If nothing else, shouldn’t they be at least as memorable as a hip-hop rap song?
My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near.
I was riding on the Mayflower when I thought I spied some land,
I yelled for Captain Ahab, I’ll have you understand,
Who came running to the deck, said boys forget the whale,
We’re goin’ over yonder, cut the engine change the sail…
That’s a really long dream song that Dylan wrote – and I can still remember most of it off the top of my head.
Even the little dirty ditties that I learned as a kid are pretty much still floating around in my head:
Open the floor and lay on the floor said… Well I’ll leave that for another day.
Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.
You want all the street lights to be on in the running picture above. There are rules for any art form that are based on scientific principles and rhyming is one of them. Phew, I had been meaning to get that off my chest for a long time.
