Collaborations: Spin Class, Rock, Poetry

Today at spin class, our spin instructor had put together a tribute to The Doors ride--what fun!  In some ways sobering, thinking about Ray Manzarek's death on Monday and Jim Morrison's death decades ago.  But it was great to hear that music, lots of it, song after song.

It was not the mind altering experience that my younger self might have expected, even as we spun in the near darkness under the purple glow of the black lights.  But I did come away with a poem idea--hurrah!

I thought about Jim Morrison who began life as a poet before he met Manzarek on that beach in Venice.  I thought about the book of Morrison's poems that my dad gave me one year for Christmas.  I liked his lyrics better, but it occurs to me that I might have simply been more familiar with them.

As I listened to the lyrics today, I was struck by how much I liked them.  I love "Soul Kitchen" for many reasons, and today I realized that Morrison had rhymed minaret with alphabet!

"I got home and looked up the lyrics.  Here's that verse:
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets

Speak in secret alphabets
I light another cigarette
Learn to forget, learn to forget
Learn to forget, learn to forget"

How many other poets went on to become rock heroes?  I'm thinking of the lead singer for Rage Against the Machine.  I can't come up with many others.  Folkie singer-songwriter types, yes.  But not many folks who create powerful rock with great lyrics.  I'd give you U2 in that count, although in a way I'd have to leave them out, since I don't think any of the members was a poet first (but I could be wrong).

I'll continue to be intrigued by artistic collaborations, like amongst musicians and poets.  This Saturday, I'm part of an event at Into the Woods Gallery and Body Art Studio (138 N. Federal Highway in Dania Beach).  They're launching a show with the theme of Twisted Fairy Tales.  So, I've been asked to come read some of my fairy tale poems.  I'm not sure what to expect.  I'm fairly sure it will be different from most poetry readings I've done.

Now it's off to write my poem. My brain swirls with images of dark and swimming to the moon. I have a vision of a woman who watches comets in her youth but now can't see much in her light polluted sky and doesn't drive through the night anymore anyway--one of the prices of having a house, after all.