As you'll have seen from my previous post, I've been busy editing StarMark. Still am, actually - had completely under estimated how much time it takes, but more of that at a later date!
Last Wednesday, I took some time off from editing to go to NIBS.
We had a musical evening...no singing, but I did take a stack of CD's with me.
One of the exercises was to pick a CD whose artwork appealed, and use that as inspiration.What was interesting was that they were my CD's - and I'd never looked so closely at some of the art before. Did you realise that on the Muse album Resistance, there's the world right in the centre of the rainbow tunnel? Or that on Muse's Absolution cover, the guy left standing has a gas mask in his hand? I didn't. (And yes, I have a lot of Muse!)
Anyway, I chose Madness's The Liberty of Norton Folgate. Here's the cover;
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Now, at first sight, the shadow looks like he's dancing, but there's something about the silhouette that I found more sinister. Perhaps I'd been watching too much Dickensian...but it definitely felt a bit Victorian.
Anyway, here's what I wrote as a result...
In the darkness of night...
In the darkness of night,
he comes,
in a coat made of shadow,
his cane tapping time away with every cobble it connects with.
A hint of swagger,
a dance of confidence,
where there is fear in a street cowed by his rule.
He trips lightly in this place,
tips his hat to the women he owns...
On the surface a gentleman-
but the cane breaks flesh and bone if his property fails to deliver.
In the darkness of night he comes,
to be caught only by the lamplight - never the law -
near dark alleys and dead ends,
watching and waiting with a tiger's smile
to entice the curious or desperate to sample his wares.
Until, as the gas lamps sputter and fade at dawn
he melts away until darkness falls.
I see this as sinister. I'm reminded a little of Quilp from the Old Curiosity Shop, with the shadow making him larger than life and infinitely evil.
ReplyDeleteDon't know the character, Alan, but will look him up.
DeleteMy first thought - and I'm not familiar with this album nor it's backstory - was that the chap on the front is the eponymous Mister Folgate in the flesh so to speak, having just liberated himself from one of London's grimmest jails - Newgate perhaps, I cannot quite read the sign - and can now be seen creeping about the cobbled streets. See there! his shadow on the prison entrance. Perhaps he met a bad end in a gin parlour, or perhaps he lives the life of luxury he so craved. Oh, Mister Folgate, where are ya now?
ReplyDelete- bdcharles (now off to check Wikipedia to see how I did!)
Yep. Nope. Completely wrong. Learnt loads about the division of land in the Middle Ages though...
DeleteHehehe! Top marks for imagination, though, bdc! :)
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