Word Garden Word List #4 (Laura Nyro)

 

Hi everyone, it's me, with your weekly word list writing prompt! This time, the words are taken from the lyrics of songs written by the late Laura Nyro. Haven't heard of her? You've probably heard her songs recorded by others, from Blood Sweat & Tears to Three Dog Night to The 5th Dimension and many others. 

When I was 16, I was visiting a friend at her apartment, and she had some record albums leaning against the wall. The one in front was Laura Nyro "New York Tendaberry." I wondered who this wild-haired woman was, standing in the wind, looking like some sort of urban poet goddess. I soon bought a copy for myself and....mind. blown. Soon after, I bought the rest of her albums. Check out these lyrics from "Stoney End" with which Barbra Streisand had a hit:

Never mind the forecast

Cos the sky has lost control

And the fury and the broken thunder's come

To match my ragin' soul

Or this, from New York Tendaberry:

Sidewalk and pigeon

You look like a city

But you feel like religion to me

Laura was born in the Bronx in 1947. She says that music was, from an early age, a way for her to cope with a difficult childhood. "I've created my own little world, a world of music, since I was 5 years old." She never sought fame, and in fact, shied away from it. Even though her songs are best known as sung by others, her own singing is passionate and covers three octaves. She composed her own songs, and played piano on them, in a unique and amazing style unlike anyone else. I can't even express how much her songs and the way she performed them inspired my own creativity, and still do. 

Laura passed of ovarian cancer at the young age of 49 in 1997. She was an animal rights activist and mother of one. She is missed.

And now, without further ado, are your 20 words! Please use at least 3 of them to write a poem of any length or style, OR a "flash 55" which is a poem or flash fiction consisting of exactly 55 words. Then link (Yes, we now have a linky!), visit, and enjoy. Prompt stays "live" through Friday.

blues

cats

captain

coffin

confession

cradle

fearless

firecrackers

forecast

fury

holy

lazy

patience

pigeon

religion

stoned

train

tomcat

whistle

winter

Alley Cat Queen

 

There she is, the one the cats call queen,

the one you find fearless,

standing by the resale store

holding the rising sun in her half-curled fingers.

You quit getting stoned when you heard the trainman

blow his whistle in a nightmare at noon,

but now look--you're wasted on this woman.

Her, with her corona of crows, and pigeon entourage.

Love is lazy, chica. It sleeps cos it feels like falling,

and only gets up to set the winter on fire.

You need those ice-bones that doxed a coffin

but you're pouring yourself out like a tapped sugar tree.

I know, baby, I know. Love the buzz, hate the forecast,

but here's religion, honey, here's firecrackers on the altar:

the bright on her body, the heavens in her hand?

It all came from you. She's just a moon, reflecting,

And she blinks out every time you close your eyes.

_________

for Word Garden Word List #4 (Laura Nyro).

image: Chinese actress Fan Bingbing

Mercy Me/ Gibsom Street

Two videos I thought were really good. From the global,

HERE  (sorry, I couldn't embed it)

To the personal...



Happy Sunday.

New York Tendaberry

When I was in high school, I discovered "New York Tendaberry" by Laura Nyro. It remains my favorite album ever. This is the last song on it. I heard the passion and the poetry she created and knew that's what I wanted to do, and be.

I had never heard anything like her, and still haven't. When I heard this song the first time, I cried. When I heard this song just now, I cried. She made me want to be a passionate original who could turn the world around her into amazing art. The place shown in the opening? I wanted to live there. I wanted to be Laura Nyro. Well, I'm me, and that's turned out all right, I think.

Enjoy.