Deep from dreams a holler crazed
from crimson lips, my larynx wins
a putrid wailing, grows erupts to blaze,
in razor wire blood and common sins
So dumb and daft, dictatorships
in narcissism, napalm and gas
we kneel, we beg before the whips
and letting blood to soak the grass
At night letting innocents be raped
while corpses dangle from the beams
a future cruelly carved and shaped
There’s a reason why we scream
four hundred horsemen cataclysm
disgorged from fear and fanaticism.
Today Mish hosts at dVerse and we are writing ekphrastic poetry to album cover. I must admit that I only found the groundbreaking music by King Crimson when I started to listen to progressive rock many years later.
Björn Rudbergs writings 
A powerful write, Bjorn. Am currently reading The Women for the second time in as many months. The historical fiction is about women who served in Viet Nam as nurses….their shock getting there….the horrors of being there….and the shock of getting home. Your poem resonates with me given this book.
The song by King Crimson mentions both napalm and rape… so yes the album cover would fit that.
I have that book and hope to read it soon.
I love King Crimson and I’m stunned at where the image took you in this sonnet, Björn! The opening line is a total hook, and what a great final couplet!
Thank you… so clear to me that it started with a scream, and then reading some lyrics from king C and it became easy.
I was curious if you also took some lyrical inspiration too. I’m often doing that myself.
Oh I was hoping someone would use this album. I love the way you were moved by the image and the lyrics. The rawness and intensity of the lines work so well with the album cover….and yes, “there’s a reason why we scream”…..the horror of it all. Great sonnet.
Thank you… and the lyric in itself seems so apt in the current way it (doesn’t) work.
….not like you to hold back…! Apologies for the >Brit humour…I am quite stunned at what you can do with a Sonnet, and turn it into a form that fits the verse as a glove. Stunning, dark…well, of course, but…….really spoken with the seal of truth and sincerity, and among those powerful lines, how this stuck out, how it stuck in…
we kneel, we beg before the whips
Thank you… it is a dark time we live in. The 21st century indeed.
Wow, this packs a punch as does the cover!! Bjorn this is our history and unfortunately history repeated, we are screaming and if we’re not we will be. Disgorged on fear and fanaticism and realisation we have no control.
We are in the 21st century… and the lyrics fit so well.
Such horrible, visceral imagery inspired by a screaming crimson face.
And of course the music itself…
The beauty of music is that it always seems to resonate from deep emotional expression. Your poem really shows that to be the case.
Agree
A powerful sonnet, Bjorn. 🙂
Thank you
Wow! The album cover and their lyrics inspired a hard-hitting sonnet that reflects the times we live in.
Alas the 21st century is not looking promising.
Not at all…
This album came out when the 20th century had ceased looking promising – so it’s sort of an omen of a feedback loop crashing into the 21st century you title well as all those pretty apocalyptic horsemen. Amen.
It felt like the omen is starting to fulfil itself alas
This is a powerful poem! It makes me wonder if the apocalypse is upon us! Weather, politics… it’s all terrifying!
We have the apocalypse… we just require more horsemen.
PR may not be my fav genre, but what a powerful poem!
For me it is a back and forth journey…. sometimes I just want to get lost in progressive rock
🙂
If we thought that the Vietnam war was the final gasp of war in the 20th Century – and many of us did – then this King Crimson track told us otherwise and sadly it has proved only too true – great sonnet and choice of album cover, Björn…
I remember the shock of seeing this album cover for the first time. You are in no doubt something terrible is being witnessed. Now you remind me of the prophetic content. I will have to get it out for a play if I can bear the message of all over again. It is a potent revisiting you have left us with. The poem matches the horror of the scream. Every bit as real as seeing the news these days. How much more harm can we do to each other?
I love King Crimson. takes me back to college years. on a side note, last month I attended a concert where Adrian Belew, Jerry Harrison, and a new band played Talking Heads Remain in Light album plus other songs from the Heads, Belew’s solo career, and other tunes from that era. Bunch of old fogies like me up and dancing.
as for the pen… sigh. the US Senate is poised to fall to republicans again, so even if Harris were to win, expect more stupid and ultimately damaging behavior from the US.
This is the time for screaming.
Very powerful, Bjorn. A great poem.
It’s a strong write for the image and an excellent album to boot!
One of my favourite albums. I love how you take the image and weave the horror of the world’s brutality.