Art of Life

A Youtube Poem


The world Is Our
Raison D'etre
I swallowed hard, like I understood.
So long, lonesome
Unspoiled Monster

They Move On Tracks Of Never Ending Light
Arriving somewhere but not here
Where am I?
The sky remains the same as ever
When everything dies

Do
The quiet things that no one ever knows
Fireflies and empty skies
The end of the beginning
The art of dying

Don't save us from the flames
Set fire to flames
There Are Some Remedies Worse Than The Disease
Birthday Resistance
Forever Lost

The remains of the day
Gone
The way of all flesh

http://www.plurk.com/p/3cyjao

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Ok. So I have no idea if I followed convention, or even if there are conventions, but I like what my efforts have resulted in so I have to say I like this medium of expression as well.

My first intent with this poem was to create not only a poem (since I could do that through simple plagiarism of song titles) but also a playlist. A good, nay great playlist, one that followed the pacing of the poem and contributed rather than accompanied the poem as a whole. It would take more hubris than I have in my body to say I successfully accomplished this, but for a first effort I think it turned out pretty good.

Post-rock and experimental/progressive rock have always fascinated me, and I knew from the second I heard "youtube poem" that I wanted to incorperate them into the project somehow. It turned out that certain of these bands formed the core sound for this poem: God is an Astronaut, World's End Girlfriend, Mono, and All that Remains, all unique in their own right but similarly dreamy and beautiful. Bands like these always evoke in me feelings of isolation amongst beauty, one human being struggling to describe the astonishing phenominom that is life around them. From birth to death this music is all of us, trying to make sense of the world.

In a sense then this poem runs from birth to death, perhaps it seems to short to do this on paper but if you listen to the entire poem as one long playlist, well perhaps not. To help structure the poem better in accordance to this theme, I included songs that were not in the same genre field as the post/experimental rock instrumentals. Screams, static, temporary lapses into silence, all of these elements are favored heavily by Mutyumu and World's End, Mutyumu is especially fond of counter playing beautiful piano and vocals with screams and harsh techno breaks. Their song near the beginning, Raison D'etre, is birth (markedly not the first line) for this reason, both beautiful and violent. The poem plays on in a dreamscape until it hits Porcupine Tree's "Arriving somewhere but not here," which represents the first instance we recognize our mortality, and our transient nature in the world. Brand New's The Quiet Things is a shift into youthful aggression and frustration, continuing to grow but feeling directionless.

The instrumentals become heavier at this point, eventually building up to a lengthy metal song by Gojira called The Art of Dying. At this point the "life" in this poem has begun to decay, this person specifically or all of us as a species must switch over from the art of life into the art of dying, a (especially if you listen to the song) remarkably violent process. Although only 7 lines remain in the poem at this point, everything following the switch to the art of dying represents adulthood. The music slows, darkens, but is now, in my opinion, the most beautiful in the entire piece. Birthday resistance encompasses the struggle to come to peace with death, starting timidly, crescendo-ing with violence and anger, ending with strength. Forever lost is the euphoria, and the lift away, and then the nothing.

The last three lines are merely an echo of the poem as a whole, two parts beauty and one part violence and decay. Life, to me, is violent and beautiful, and neither is diminished by the others interruption into it's domain. Our minds struggle through our whole lives to make the decay around us into something beautiful (post-rock), to turn the final violence, that of death, into peace. But death is violent. Even understanding death is violent. For that reason I included two concepts of death, the first of Forever Lost is the acceptance of the concept. The Way of All Flesh is experiencing it. If you listen to enough death metal, even the growling and the heavy guitars become soothing. I would go so far as to say that Gojira makes beautiful music. Feel free to disagree.

Anyway, the tl;dr idea here is that we exist as a result of violent beauty/beautiful violence, and the music that spawned the words for this poem (hopefully) will blend together to convey that in this youtube poem.

P.S. even if you think the way I arranged this poem is bad, do not do yourself the disservice of passing up the music. Most of it is truly amazing imho.