Poetry Forum

He blew his brains out in his caravan,
wife and kids playing cards in the next room.
Life and heat were sucking him down.
He couldn’t take the constant bickering.

Just that week his wife bought him a shotgun
to shoot the rats and the bandicoots.
He used his thumb to push the trigger down.
Finally he’d numbed that ever-present pain.

Undertakers, they came and they went.
Police took photographs and measurements.
They made notes and took away the big bits.
We wrestled with the ants to clear away the rest.

Sleeping in a box with the outline of her lover,
chalk and blood paint the story on the floor.
Raindrops on the windows were her only tears.
Sheets of rain could not wash away
the blackness that she bore.

Life goes on - she slept in that room that night.
Life goes on - she had a lover by the weekend.
Life goes on - she raised the kids in her own sweet way.
Life goes on and on and on and on.

She built a house where the caravan once stood -
a monument erected to dreams incomplete,
a wishing well and a jungle out the back,
a family broken by this unrelenting heat.

Going troppo in the balmy nights -
Loss of sleep and appetite -
Mosquitoes humming to the dripping of the water -
Going troppo, going, going under -
Going out of our minds.


* This is a song lyric. 4 distinct parts - sorry if it doesn't hold together as a poem. Last verse is a chorus but I didn't quite know where to put it here because it repeats a couple of times.

'He blew his mind out in a car' was the first thing I thought of. I'd like to hear it sung though, rather than just reading it. However, it does make a change to read good lyrics, most songs go to crap when they're read and not performed.

'Sleeping in a box with the outline of her lover,
chalk and blood paint the story on the floor.'

This is good stuff - love to hear it.

cheers

Barrie

Distant echoes of 'Hollis Brown'.

Dave

Thought the opening was a bit "well-used" but, as we've already been over, you can get away with it in song.

"They made notes and took away the big bits.
We wrestled with the ants to clear away the rest. - this one really grabbed me - great.

and as already mentioned -

"Sleeping in a box with the outline of her lover,
chalk and blood paint the story on the floor. " - paints the scene a treat!

I'd love to hear it sung too.

Mick.

hey

really liked it, i liked the blunt way the topic was dealt with, it wasn't over-romanticised

the first 2 line's really hit me

He blew his brains out in his caravan,
wife and kids playing cards in the next room

this is a bit of a dodgy line, sounds a bit cliched, but the rest of it covers it well, maybe you could refer to the shotgun as a (lead) injection?
if you wanted to keep the point of the line

Finally he’d numbed that ever-present pain.

this is an amazing line and loved the bluntness once again

They made notes and took away the big bits.
We wrestled with the ants to clear away the rest.

and the rest of the poem goes on in the same blunt fashion,

really liked it, thanks for posting

benjy

Well the first line gets the readers interest and the rest portrays a very sad scene and gruesome end. As a song --- well I just can't think it would go down well at discos but a sad Ballard then.....maybe
Well done keep writing
Karen

kozmikdave wrote:He blew his brains out in his caravan,
wife and kids playing cards in the next room.
Life and heat were sucking him down.
He couldn’t take the constant bickering.

Just that week his wife bought him a shotgun
to shoot the rats and the bandicoots.
He used his thumb to push the trigger down.
Finally he’d numbed that ever-present pain.

Undertakers, they came and they went.
Police took photographs and measurements.
They made notes and took away the big bits.
We wrestled with the ants to clear away the rest.

Sleeping in a box with the outline of her lover,
chalk and blood paint the story on the floor.
Raindrops on the windows were her only tears.
Sheets of rain could not wash away
the blackness that she bore.

Life goes on - she slept in that room that night.
Life goes on - she had a lover by the weekend.
Life goes on - she raised the kids in her own sweet way.
Life goes on and on and on and on.

She built a house where the caravan once stood -
a monument erected to dreams incomplete,
a wishing well and a jungle out the back,
a family broken by this unrelenting heat.

Going troppo in the balmy nights -
Loss of sleep and appetite -
Mosquitoes humming to the dripping of the water -
Going troppo, going, going under -
Going out of our minds.


* This is a song lyric. 4 distinct parts - sorry if it doesn't hold together as a poem. Last verse is a chorus but I didn't quite know where to put it here because it repeats a couple of times.

I hope this is mild criticism. I'm not sure what any real definition
of 'critique' is. I can't find much agreement. It's just like movie
critics. They are all of them the only person who 'knows'.
First, this is a really excellent poem for a song lyric. Because of
rests and triplets and slurs and um, the word skips my mind but
dotted notes, it's hard to translate lyrics to poems, but you've
done a find job, in my opinion.

Anyway, if this is too strong, just tell me and I'll modify my ways.

He blew his brains out in his caravan,
wife and kids playing cards in the next room.
Life and heat were sucking him down.
He couldn’t take the constant bickering.

[I think this reads very well, but it doesn't
rhyme but most of the rest of the poem does. So
maybe you should put it in brackets, or
use ellipses.]

Just that week his wife bought him a shotgun
to shoot the rats and the bandicoots.
He used his thumb to push the trigger down.
Finally he’d numbed that ever-present pain.

[Lovely interior rhyme, and an image that
is honest, but not horribly depressing]

Undertakers, they came and they went.
Police took photographs and measurements.
They made notes and took away the big bits.
We wrestled with the ants to clear away the rest.

[Now you're gradually pouring it on. Good!
Undertakers they came and they went, not
bad, but not good, in my opinion, because the
grammar is questionable without giving us
a trope. You could eliminate the, for me,
awkward pause between 'undertakers' and 'they'
by leaving out the 'they.
Undertakers came and undertakers went.
Undertakers came, did business, went.
They took away the big bits is a fine trope,
the ants lend a grizzly detail that lends
even more verisimilitude to the piece. Great guns
so far, in my estimation]

Sleeping in a box with the outline of her lover,
chalk and blood paint the story on the floor.
Raindrops on the windows were her only tears.
Sheets of rain could not wash away
the blackness that she bore.

[Here for reason of meter I suspect, you start
with present-narrative I think it's called,
with 'sleeping' and 'paint', but then in the same
scene, recording the same time, you have 'were'
and 'bore' so you've slid from present to past tense.
I noticed it, so will others. Maybe ellipses would
cure that, maybe a slight re-write, or maybe you
fully intended to do it for some effect that I'm not
getting]

Life goes on - she slept in that room that night.
Life goes on - she had a lover by the weekend.
Life goes on - she raised the kids in her own sweet way.
Life goes on and on and on and on.

She built a house where the caravan once stood -
a monument erected to dreams incomplete,
a wishing well and a jungle out the back,
a family broken by this unrelenting heat.

Going troppo in the balmy nights -
Loss of sleep and appetite -
Mosquitoes humming to the dripping of the water -
Going troppo, going, going under -
Going out of our minds.

[It isn't happening to me. Going out of my mind.
I'm not sure why the last two stanzas are there.
You've said that life goes on,
and you've shown that she wasn't attached to her
husband. What I know from the last two stanzas are
that it was heat, (I've forgotten by now that that 'heat'
is, I hope, a metaphor for constant bickering), that
broke up the family, and the mosquitoes imply that
you mean it literally, and it's not true. Heat may
exacerbate a bad situation, but it doesn't alone
break up families, does it?

And finally, I've learned that I'm going out of my mind,
but, Hey, Josephine, not now, I'm critiquing a poem!
Jesus, I have to leave in a half-hour to conquer Russia
and you're bothering me about a new crown?
(sigh) sorry about that interruption, she just doesn't know
when to quit. Anyway, I'm not going mad at all. Are you
spying on me?]

Thanks Robert

You have gone to a great deal of touble to evaluate the song. I appreciate that. (Now that there is a lyrics forum, it should possibly be moved. As per footnote, I did find it difficult to know how to present it.)

I put the chorus at the end, but in truth, the song begins with it. So this is the sung order:


CHORUS

Going troppo in the balmy nights...

VERSE I
He blew his brains out in his caravan....

VERSE II
Just that week his wife bought him a shotgun....

CHORUS

VERSE III
Undertakers, they came and they went....

BRIDGE I
Sleeping in a box with the outline of her lover....

BRIDGE II
Life goes on....

VERSE IV
She built a house where the caravan once stood....

CHORUS

Living in the tropics has a strange effect on some people, and yes it is the heat - the type of relentless heat that gets under your skin and causes small problems to be exacerbated. Suicide is not pretty anywhere but almost excused in the tropics.

My tense inadequacies are becoming legend, so I will throw in my hand at this point. In my defence, I am Australian. When we relate stories, we often use present tense as emphasis. Eg. My mate met this sheila down town last night. He goes up to her and asks her for a shag - just like that. Man I was dead jealous when she said "Go for it!"

Cheers
Dave

I love this, and as others have said, would love to hear it performed to music.

The words very clearly evoke feelings of despair and squalor, and I love the lines:


She built a house where the caravan once stood -
a monument erected to dreams incomplete,
a wishing well and a jungle out the back,
a family broken by this unrelenting heat

giving the feeling that she was trying to make something of her life, but was thwarted by the encroaching jungle and the all pervading heat.

Good one !!!