Songwriters as Poets

Linking to: Cara Powers FreeVerse.... use the button above.

Went back to an entry that Cara, the "hostess" at FreeVerse, posted last year. Can songs be lyrical poetry? Can songwriters act as poets?

I truly think so. But not every songwriter writes poetry every time. Here's one that runs about 90% poetry, in my estimation. She's one of the two "Indigo Girls" .

"Come On Home"

Dark clouds are comin' like an army

Soon the sky will open up and disarm me

You will go just like you've gone before

One sad soldier off to war, enemies that only you can see.

Dishes stacked, the table cleared

It's always like the scene of the last supper here

You speak so cryptically that's not news to me

The flood is here it will carry you

And I've got work to do.

There is fire there is lust

Some will trade it all for someone they could trust

There's a bag of silver for a box of nails

It's so simple the betrayal

Though it's known to change the world and what's to come.

Just come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own

But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before

Don't you recognize them anymore

I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

There's the given and the expected

I count my blessings while I eye what I've neglected

Is this for better is this for worse

You're all jammed up and the dam's about to burst.

I hear the owl in the night

I realize that some things never are made right

By some will we string together here

Days to months and months to years

What if everything we have adds up to nothing?

Come on home, the team you're hitched to has a mind of its own

But it's just the forces of your past you've fought before

Come back here and shut the door

I'm stacking sandbags against the river of your troubles.

~Emily Saliers