Which Pearl Jam Song Inspired This?

Ms. Haiku

I'll write a poem that contains some clues as to the song that inspired it. It should be easy to figure out. I thought of this at the second St. John's concert right smack dab in the middle of it. I realized that Pearl Jam has inspired me quite a bit, and so I'm just flowing with it . . .


He sees her on the bench.
Her head covered in shades of aging.
She’s not moving,
like a garden statue,
covered in vintage,
that was only bought once.
A bee flies away in disgust.
She became all she wanted to be.
For her he pretends.

He reads a book from a neighboring bench.
The book tattered from reading and reading again.
He wanted to fly to the moon.
He wanted to be a man.

His head filled with dreams and visions
and perfect landings,
of shadows he challenges,
and demons he slays.
He shuffles his feet remembering
the perfect morning;
when getting out of bed
was a new experience.

CodeRiot

Dirty Frank?

Ms. Haiku

CodeRiot wrote:

Dirty Frank?

It's on Lost Dogs as is Dirty Frank, but another one. When I write the poem inspired by Dirty Frank it should be very obvious. I thought this was, but oooops.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Well, there's a bee in the poem, and it mentions an old girl...

Being Enlightened

I'd have to guess it as Bee Girl. Am I right?

I really like how you usually let us know what inspired your poems, BTW.

Ms. Haiku

Yep, BEE GIRL is it! So, is it ok if I put it in this game format or would you rather prefer that I write "Inspired by Pearl Jam's . . ." as the title? I like this little game since I was inspired at a live concert.

Ms. Haiku

Also, what is your definition of "immortality?" What would cause immortality for you at this moment? I'm thinking of a new poem inspired by ?

DopeBeastie

living forever


impossible for the childless and sub-genius folk, yeah?


resolve dissolved

Ms. Haiku

PastaNazi wrote:

impossible for the childless and sub-genius folk, yeah?

This is very interesting, because I feel immortality coming on but I don't have children. I think of it as the next step. I wonder if I had children if I would think of someone like myself as I am now as a fool.

DopeBeastie

Bibliobella wrote:

This is very interesting, because I feel immortality coming on but I don't have children. I think of it as the next step. I wonder if I had children if I would think of someone like myself as I am now as a fool.

I wonder if we're not all already immortal, you know? Just part of one everlasting spirit? Like, do the Buddists have it right?

And I have kids. For me, it's a very personal experience. It is me, and it is my children. Special and separate from everything else. There's very little consideration of what others do or don't have in that regard, or what they are or aren't. But, in thinking of immortality, I cannot say that "I" will end, because they are each 1/2 me. Genetically and mentally. So it doesn't matter that I'm a dumbass and probably wont create anything that'll go on and on like Godin or Lovelace or Frost or Wright...

Ms. Haiku

I was out on my break and I was trying to define immortality to myself, and I realized that in order to understand immortality more I need to accept my mortality. Now, once I had to face it like a brick in the face, but luckily the doctors were just fuckups without a clue, but it scared me severely. It's almost easier to think of immortality since it has no end, and for that reason is more comfortable, then to think of mortality which by definition has an end. I think if I had children I would hold on to my mortality, just hold on to life and not let go. I would fight the next step tooth and nail, but I would see in my children more than myself, and maybe that is what immortality would be all about for me as a parent. . .hmmmmmm

Being Enlightened

Hmmm, I know I'm not immortal but we can leave things behind that make us live on in the minds of others thereby becoming immortal in a way, I suppose. I can see that in having children, in a way, you live on in them and their children and their children's children...

I like the idea that the spirit, the soul, is immortal. It's a pleasant thought that makes our physical mortality a little more bearable.

Ms. Haiku

Here's the Pearl Jam lyrics to "Immortality." What do you think this is about?

PEARL JAM


Immortality


Vacate is the word...vengeance has no place on me or her
Cannot find the comfort in this world
Artificial tear...vessel stabbed...next up, volunteers
Vulnerable, wisdom can't adhere...

A truant finds home...and I wish to hold on...
But there's a trapdoor in the sun...immortality...

As privileged as a whore...victims in demand for public show
Swept out through the cracks beneath the door
Holier than thou, how?
Surrendered...executed anyhow
Scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor...

A truant finds home...and I wish to hold on, too...
But saw the trapdoor in the sun...

Immortality...
I cannot stop the thought...I'm running in the dark...
Coming up a which way sign...all good truants must decide...
Oh, stripped and sold, mom...auctioned forearm...
And whiskers in the sink...
Truants move on...cannot stay long
Some die just to live...
Ohh...



After reading this I think I'm thinking about immortality too hard, as if I'm all action and no words. I can procrastinate and procrastinate with theories, but really, where's my poem? Someone else was able to create a scene with that word, why can't I?

pacifier

I think the only thing that scares me more than death is immortality (at least that was the case before I met the man I love, now it's kind of opposite). This was probably because I have seen death, I know what death is, I understand it to some extent, but forever is so far out of the range of my knowledge and understanding that it physically makes me sick to think about it. No one knows what happens after you die, maybe you do live on. I think everybody does is some way.

but I came up with the thought that even as a mortal I will live forever....forever has no begining and no end, I had no beginning, not in my mind, I have no consciousness of coming into being, as far as I know I was always here...and I believe my death will probably be similar with no distinct ending to "remember" if you like....so if I never began and I never end but I am, then my existance will have been forever...make sense? Or am I just a looney?

pacifier

I woke this morning
Tomorrow I will wake again
Waiting for an end that never comes

FinsburyParkCarrots

pacifier wrote:

I think the only thing that scares me more than death is immortality (at least that was the case before I met the man I love, now it's kind of opposite). This was probably because I have seen death, I know what death is, I understand it to some extent, but forever is so far out of the range of my knowledge and understanding that it physically makes me sick to think about it. No one knows what happens after you die, maybe you do live on. I think everybody does is some way.

but I came up with the thought that even as a mortal I will live forever....forever has no begining and no end, I had no beginning, not in my mind, I have no consciousness of coming into being, as far as I know I was always here...and I believe my death will probably be similar with no distinct ending to "remember" if you like....so if I never began and I never end but I am, then my existance will have been forever...make sense? Or am I just a looney?

No more than Hamlet. See, he was scared of the afterlife too:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

(Act three, scene one)

pacifier

hmmm, sounds like he was afraid of what was after life, though. I'm a touch afraid of that, but I think what I'm more afraid of is the no ending part. Seriously it's making me feel a little ill just thinking about it. I've never known anything without an end. I can't comprehend it.

pacifier

The only thing that can settle my stomach on this one is the thought of reincarnation, where you live in blocks of time with a beginning and an end, but you don't remember that you will last forever.

I also like the idea that when people die their bodies breakdown and what was once them is recycled into something new. I like that thought.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I know what you mean: The moment of ontological end. The moment the thoughts stop. The "I" ends. Our received view of history, space, time, is all locked within us as individuals. We communicate with others but ultimately the sum total of everything is as we know it, within ourselves. For us to die, history, space and time will seem to die with thought, with feeling. Or as you say, it could inhabit a netherworld of existence like our constructed memories of pre-birth history. Yes, that's death for you. I feel more ready for it - that nothingness - as I get a little older: not in a morbid sense, but as part of a natural process.

Was it Woody Allen who said something like "I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens"? If I can be there and feel the slipping away of the self naturally, that will be okay by me.

Ali

Bibliobella wrote:

Here's the Pearl Jam lyrics to "Immortality." What do you think this is about?

PEARL JAM


Immortality


Vacate is the word...vengeance has no place on me or her
Cannot find the comfort in this world
Artificial tear...vessel stabbed...next up, volunteers
Vulnerable, wisdom can't adhere...

A truant finds home...and I wish to hold on...
But there's a trapdoor in the sun...immortality...

As privileged as a whore...victims in demand for public show
Swept out through the cracks beneath the door
Holier than thou, how?
Surrendered...executed anyhow
Scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor...

A truant finds home...and I wish to hold on, too...
But saw the trapdoor in the sun...

Immortality...
I cannot stop the thought...I'm running in the dark...
Coming up a which way sign...all good truants must decide...
Oh, stripped and sold, mom...auctioned forearm...
And whiskers in the sink...
Truants move on...cannot stay long
Some die just to live...
Ohh...



After reading this I think I'm thinking about immortality too hard, as if I'm all action and no words. I can procrastinate and procrastinate with theories, but really, where's my poem? Someone else was able to create a scene with that word, why can't I?

Thanks for the words Bib.Are You from NJ?
I LOOOVEEE your signature.
Gotta love us jersey girls.
And as they say.....
"TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES":)

pearlmutt

i love the poem, bibliobella

and, Ali, this is one of my favorite lines of all time, from immortality:

"Coming up a which way sign...all good truants must decide..."

and one of my favorite shakespeare lines, we had to memorize it, about immortality something about life and death, what is it finns?

to be or not to be, -- that is the question
whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
or to take arms against a sea of troubles
and by opposing end them? -- to die,--to sleep, --
no more; and by a sleep to say we end
the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to, --'tis consummation
devoutly to be wish'd. to die-- to sleep --
To sleep! perchance to dream: -- ay, there's the rub
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

(oooh, shakespeare, so good.)