Galimathias Musicum – 13th July 2025

~ shaun tenzenmen

He’s a loose liver, a great blusterer1
Building a life out of pieces gathered in secret.
Gradually becoming a disaster, his signature
He’s a man made of many departures.

At an all-you-can-eat festival of bad decisions
Only a maniac would slice cheese with a chainsaw
Cosplaying poverty, becoming marginally less useless
Words are only understood when you stop thinking about them2

We need to understand that we are already living with the monsters
Forming a complicated cake of dissolved civilisations
A concrete monument made out of nonsense
A fake perfume of cum scented compliments

1I read this line in a book, I think, but didn’t take note when I saved it for use later.
2This line is from a Substack article, which, again, I forgot to take note of

This hybrid cento came together after collecting a bunch of phrases (mostly linked in the poem) and then applying them to the GloPoWriMo Day 5 prompt: write a poem inspired by musical notation and words from a provided list (found at the link). I went with the following:
“gradually becoming a disaster”
Death metal symphony
nonsense, monument, concrete, departures

I was stuck for a title until I dug around a bit and found this from Mozart, the meaning of which is:
“Galimathias“: A pseudo-Latin term derived from French galimatias (meaning nonsense or gibberish).
“Musicum“: Latin for “musical.”
Together: Roughly translates to “Musical Nonsense” or “A Musical Hodgepodge.“

This seemed entirely appropriate.

And though the resulting Suno AI song is very straightforward and nothing like a hodgepodge, I think that it’s quite enjoyable. Please give it a listen below.

30th Jul 2025 – Shared with dVerse Poetics – Music, Play on

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