On the Mystical Geography of Rhyming Lives

—A SONIC CONNECTIONS FIELD NOTE FROM THE ACCIDENTAL INITIATE

I was listening to that sweet tune about the little black pony when something struck me—not as a revelation, but as one of those low-flying thoughts that buzzes your ear and refuses to leave quietly.

[Take a listen. I’m sure you’ll be charmed too:]

Because here’s what I can’t get over: poets and songwriters seem to live in a suspiciously rhymable universe. Their lives arrange themselves into tidy little sound-pairs while the rest of us are lucky if our mortgage rhymes with anything at all.

This song, for instance—its whole little cosmos seems stitched together out of coincidences too neat for ordinary life.

LITTLE BLACK PONY

🎶When I was a little boy I had no time
No time for ceremonies
All I wanted was to see the world
from the back of a little black pony
From the back of a little black pony.

Mr. Lee lived across the street
had a daughter my age named Joanie
In the summertime we’d build us a boat
We’d sail to the island Coney
We’d sail to the island Coney🎶. [Marshall McKinney Wilborn]

Full lyrics here

Now this kid in the song. He wants a little black pony—and across the street lives a girl named Joanie. That’s not fate; that’s a gift-wrapped rhyme delivered by the U.S. Postal Service of Providence.

Then there’s Coney. Then the pony again. And Joanie again.

It’s as if the whole neighborhood was zoned for lyricists.

Meanwhile I, the Accidental Initiate—who has never once lived across from anyone whose name rhymes with my existential desires—am left to wonder: How do they pull it off?

I start to suspect the world quietly rearranges itself for poets the way stagehands swap scenery between acts. They wander through life and things fall into place—pony, Joanie, Coney, ceremony—while the rest of us wrestle with prose.

Maybe it isn’t fate at all. Maybe poets just have a way of noticing things the rest of us overlook—little echoes, chance pairings, stray syllables begging to be adopted. I can’t say I understand it. I only know that somehow the world seems to offer them rhymes I never see, as if reality itself enjoys slipping them clues.

For now, I’ll just marvel that the pony lived, the old man rode off, Joanie moved away, and the whole story rhymed anyway.

The world, viewed just slightly askew, seems perfectly willing to sing along.

—The Accidental Initiate

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AFTERWORD

— by Black Cloud, Chief Poetic Justice Warrior

Sheesh.

I read the Accidental Initiate’s little investigation into rhyme—pony, Joanie, Coney, phony, ceremony, and money[?]—and I almost felt superior for a moment. Almost.

Then I noticed “money” sitting there, trying to sidle up to “Joanie” as if it belonged in the family. On the page it looks like it ought to rhyme; in the air it collapses at once. Nobody’s perfect—not the language, not the poet, not even the rhyme itself. I sighed, forgave the word for trying, and kept reading. Even syllables deserve a little mercy when they wander off-key.

And I have to admit—part of the song’s spell comes from the way those rhymes lean a little too hard on each other. They wobble, they reach, they tap each other on the shoulder and some say, “Close enough.” Maybe that’s why it works. There’s a kind of handmade sweetness to it, as if the world is trying to help the melody along even when the words refuse to cooperate. Forced or not, the charm sneaks up on you.

Then I remembered I’ve made an entire career out of rhymes I more or less fabricated.

Half-rhymes, slant-rhymes, sideways-rhymes.

Once, in a moment of bold experimentation, I rhymed “dust” with “wistful metaphysics,” and nobody stopped me.

Some of my poems don’t even rhyme at all, yet I swear they do if you tilt your head far enough toward faith or despair.

So who am I to scoff at a man noticing that the universe occasionally lines up its syllables like train cars?

I’ve been coaxing words into pretending they get along for years.

If anything, I should congratulate him for spotting the rare occasions when the world does the job for us.

Still—sheesh.

Not at him this time.

At myself, for getting caught humming those same rhymes on the walk back to my desk.

— Black Cloud

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