night swimming with mike stipe ~ (or how to choose the right track while
driving.)
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She always drives with one particular compilation
On perpetual play.
Yes, someone had convinced her that one day, she too would die;
Not yet, not in this way,
Not in this cold obscurity,
With no fine music on her lip,
She was too good too good too good,
She simply would not die a soulless passive anything,
Just listening to this crazy talk back venom;
Not in spring,
With the twisted heat of metal plunging into sun kissed skin,
Not with the sound of hate the last real music she would hear,
So R~E~M and Mahler spin;
The choice, the inspiration, quickly burned, in preparation
For the journeys she might take,
This chosen shot of music her familiar.
With Mahler dead, it's easy,
To rip the soul, adagio, from its final symphony.
With Mike Stipe, he's still singing,
Still performing, still night swimming,
Still lyrically passionate,
With all familiars missing.
So which is it to be?
What is the way to live?
With the familiar, without choosing,
Or is there something more
That she's not hearing?
Someone tried to tell her ~
It's impossible to play air guitar
While travelling a well worn highway.
Well, she thought ~
Just watch me.
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Maria Fletcher
Listening to "Sweetness Follows" REM, Midland Highway, Tasmania, 5
September 2001.
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