Walking Lines Backward
 

Listening to old prog Genesis with Peter Gabriel on this rainy day and came up with this.

"Walking Lines Backward"

Spirits shifting
Troubled, triumphant
Bitter rose bled white
Walking lines backward
Dream

Smiling eyes
Words without whispers
Illusion coveted
Mystic manipulation
Wake

Beating heart racing
Running toward an impossible finish line
Tripping, tangling, torture
When I feel your breath against my sleeve
And stop

To smell the flowers by the riverbank
Listen to the cheers of the leaves
Silk textured scribblings deliberate
Mental pictures, textured figures
Touch

Indecisive lies or wishes
Thoughts spoken loudly
Momentary distraction
Heartbound
Ever

BJH
3/23/2010

It certainly does gain from being read while some Genesis is playing in the background. It feels like a moment, so to speak; just a moment of reflection on both good and bad. Conveying more of a feeling, rather than trying to write something on the nose of the reader. A quite nice effect is to first read the whole thing and then just the sequence Dream - Wake - And stop - Touch - Ever. To nitpick a little there though - is "And stop" a continuation of the line before or does it stand on its own? In the other verses the last line feels more like a sort of summation, and as such I think it disrupts the look of the thing with that "And". A minor detail.

I was going for effect using "and stop" at the end to have a more rapid entrance to the next verse. It was an intentional disruption to lose the singsong feel I was getting.
Actually I was probably listening to "Afterglow" when that part was written and that's part of the flow I get from that song. I don't know that for sure, but it's logical to me.
Thanks for the comments.