“There is a human wildness held beneath the skin that finds all barriers brutishly unbearable”
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
BREAK DOWN
The nightmare’s voice
fills up your silence with jazz
MAD JAZZ
promises to free
up your body
fading the film to b l a c k
wipe clean your slate
choose the s w i r l i n g horns
the
C
A
S
C
A
D
I
N
G
questions
that shred
that trembling
barbed wire
against the Parrish sky
stretch out the wings
you never knew you had
stand upon the window
ledge
calling out
to the stars in their
own language
Fly beyond
© Jilly’s All Rights Reserved
Posting for dVerse Jazz Poetry with Amaya.
Jilly's 
Wonderful, uncaged energy…
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YES! Exactly what is happening there. Thanks for commenting.
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I like the idea of flying beyond the barrier of the stars, not just getting to the stars. I’ve finished reading Songs of Unreason and should have something to post tomorrow on it. I also started his novel Farmer.
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I’m so glad you read Unreason. I am working my way through it; if I read too many at once my brain implodes! 🙂 We picked up a copy of one of Harrison’s short story collections and didn’t finish it – it was a bit vulgar for my taste. I have been thinking of reading Legends of the Fall. Please let me know what you think of his fiction. I’ll watch for your post on the poetry.
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I often don’t finish books so I might not get through Farmer. Harrison descriptions are colloquial, understandable and every now and then surprising. I see what he writes as mainly prose poetry although he puts in line breaks.
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The way that you played with the spacing and the capitalization is really cool and creative. I was inspired by this and wrote something that I, surprisingly, liked.
https://revivedwriter.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/break-down-the-barriers/
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I will pop over and read later today – really look forward to it! (Would much rather read poetry than put tires on my car, but alas…) 🙂
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Love the spacing, too. Especially the way ‘swirling’ just makes it feels like the word is swirling, and ‘cascading’. And there’s that Parrish sky!
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It is such a challenge to do this kind of formatting in WP, so I don’t often use it. I’m glad the swirling effect came through – that’s what I was shooting for. And, yes, that Parrish sky 😉
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Live this bit:
calling out to the stars in their own language
Really powerful.
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Thank you, I really appreciate your words, my friend. Harrison’s words cause me to become more untamed as the days go by.
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This one was fun!
https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/floods-and-tides/
I like the Parrish touch 🙂
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Thanks Jane! Some people look at his art and say it is overblown and surreal, but some nights I step outside and find a sky more overblown than anything he ever painted.
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He got closer to the blue of the sky than anyone else, I think.
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Reblogged this on Jilly's and commented:
Shamelessly reblogging this one from last summer for Jazz night at dVerse.
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I love the whimsical, creative nature of the words and their form, and especially love ‘calling out to stars in their own language’. I enjoyed it very much!
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