a symphony

[WolfLarsen]

An excerpt from The Symphony of a Thousand Madmen
(A symphony in one movement)
by Wolf Larsen

Allegro

The Symphony begins with the SCREAMS of a thousand babies being born and the moans of a million people dying...
– And the flute wanders around the reader and the violins jump up into a sea of erotic dreams and then the kettle drums begin SMASHING & CRASHING and the choir voices begin stirring up a delicious boiling world of diseases

stirring up a delicious boiling world of diseases!

And then the violins fall out of the sea of dreams and into the rivers of irresistible temptation & sin – and the organ speaks and throws the Middle Ages all over today and the Middle Ages and contemporary classical music ricochet & dazzle all around each other and the flute diiives over the orchestra and ruuuns through a fantasy world and the piccolo ju!mps into the fantasy world and throws pink unicorns & hermaphrodite fairies everywhere...

–And now the kettle drums are SHAKING UP the world and the HO!RNS are playing millions of madmen invading everyone's minds and the symphony becomes the medieval & Renaissance & Baroque & Romantic periods of music re-e-e-eling all around each other and the plucking-plucking-violins become raindrops and then the violins rush together into a river of fire and the cymbals ROAR with a FLASH OF LIGHTNING and the tuba THU!UNDERS and the saxophone ju!mps a tornado into outer space…
Copyright 2009 by Wolf Larsen

[Delta40]

This reads better than your poem Wolf and it is a good concept. I think the overuse of 'and' doesn't quite give it the effect of a symphony of suffering proportions as you might like and I would suggest tightening it so the reader can appreciate each 'instrumental horror' before the next one is introduced.

[WolfLarsen]

Thank you Delta. What would you suggest I use instead of and?

[Delta40]

Well I would use some full stops instead. Sentences starting with and are grammatically incorrect. A sentence with more than one 'and' is not recommended either.

Consider the following alteration.

The violins fall out of the sea of dreams, into the rivers of irresistible temptation and sin. The organ speaks and throws the Middle Ages all over today; the Middle Ages and contemporary classical music ricochet, dazzle all around each other. The flute diiives over the orchestra and ruuuns through a fantasy world while the piccolo ju!mps into the fantasy world throwing pink unicorns & hermaphrodite fairies everywhere...

It reads a bit better and also reveals the repetitiveness of some words which you might consider editing. Middle Ages, fantasy world, throw.

I use http://thesaurus.com/ quite alot myself.

Hope this helps because I like its potential very much.

[billl]

I thought this was a VERY fun one. Leaning on shock is something that's easy to criticize, and part of me is disposed to launch an assault--but I'd never want to banish shock from the literature I encounter and enjoy.

I will, however, say that the hyphened "R-e-e-e-ling" and the reappearance of an exclamation point in a word (THU!UNDERS) sort of robbed the natural extension of the double-"e" word "reel", and the initial encounter with "HO!RNS" of some of their effectiveness. The final, lower-case, ju!mps might have been a nicer surprise without the mystery of "Was that a typo?" being resolved just a few words earlier. This might be nitpicking, but those sorts of effects need to be managed carefully, I think.

Anyhow, there's a lot of energy in the thing, and it really does make the advice I'm giving into a sort of nit-picking--perhaps I'm in error, and broadcasting an exaggerated shock at such (in my eyes) stumbles that were (for me) disrupting a pretty surprising and enjoyable launch into novelty! Who knows? Who could say? Frankly, what am I thinking, suggesting that "reeling" only needs two e's?

[hillwalker]

Sentences starting with and are grammatically incorrect. A sentence with more than one 'and' is not recommended either.

You obviously had the same English teacher I had. But 'rules' are made to be broken. There's nothing wrong with a sentence beginning with the word 'And'.
And repeating 'and' numerous times in a sentence can be stylistically very effective when aiming to suggest an unhindered flow of emotions/thoughts/etc.

H

[Delta40]

You're right of course. however, a foundation or platform from which to begin is a good starting point to determine whether breaking those rules will enhance our work or not. I don't think it does in this case.

[Cunninglinguist]

Would be cool if the violins, drums, and other instruments were made out of body parts or something - for example, if the strings of the violins were actually still warm & bloody tendons and if the bows were made out of femurs and human hair; perhaps the drums could be made out of skin. AND perhaps we could get some Dante-esque/monty-python a-s-s trumpeting?

[WolfLarsen]

I really liked Cunnig's idea of having the instruments made out of human body parts - or having the instruments alive!

The thing about "and" is that it works best for what I'm trying to do. But my ear is always open. As someone once told me, "when you're talking you never learn nothin."

This kind of run-on sentencing (let's make up words!) with multiple ands was born in 1994 in the city of Salvador in the Bahia region of Brazil. That is when I departed from conventional writing and I begin writing to the beat of the Afro-Brazil percussion music of the region. That music and its rhythms is the basis of much of my writing, although later there was also influences from free jazz and 20 century classic.

Thank you for your suggestions. Unfortunately, they don't work for me. But thank you nonetheless.

Cheers!