Epyphony

A day late, here’s this week’s ImprovFriday contribution: Epyphony (Three Kings Suite).

We three kings disoriented are
Guided by an unmoving star
Beacon calling morse reminder
Hopelessly following yonder star

I was always fascinated by the legend of the kings, and by the modal monotony of the holiday song. (I don’t mean that in a bad way; my love of that song probably presaged my fascination with old-time music.)

The third line is a combination mondegreen and earworm. It’s my mishearing of a lyric in Brian Eno’s “Broken Head.” The original (and, to my mind, poorer) lyric is “Beak and claw, remorse, remindless,” but I like my version better. Meanwhile, my earworms are as often rhythmic as melodic, and the scansion of that line (however you hear the words) fits the third line of “We Three Kings” perfectly. I hardly remember the original line because I always seem to hear that one instead. And in this case it fits well.