Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence and mature content.
I like to think of the time,
somewhere around 1986, when father
saw me down the staircase
into your waiting arms.
The pumping of your energetic heart
didn't transfer to your embrace,
but I held your frigid heart well.
Back then, we did never think
of blood oaths and stools at bars
cast over heads with beer bottles,
or a well-stocked medicine cabinet
with tears stored in glass bottles;
all we knew was to let love lie
where it lived most - in between bedsheets.
Did you see the man in the fedora?
I touched him on the shoulder
and saw the ever-familiar gaze
of a curious man still bound
by solemn duty to lead me
from one kind of life to another
in yet respectful silence.
It was enough to, at last,
see this town once again,
now that billboards flash new oddities
and a stately steel suspension bridge
flickers lights in early morning air,
as though a code to overhead planes
that a special passenger
has reached their faithful presence.
Too, it was good to know our world
has changed, your grandfather
no longer rests in a shabby dirt pile
under aspen saplings, and 17 years
has come to strike your chest.
Our intrepid reporter shines the limelight
once again over your sun-dried face,
and I find it funny that you still think
you can see right through me.
But you know the vows made
on an altar with a metaphorical shotgun
pointed at my face, beer under your arm -
though you tried, you could not love,
yet listened and nodded as I swore
to follow you even in death,
even if I had to come from
the ends of the earth
to do so.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
139,688 Literary Works • 672,649 Reviews
This is Kaos here for a review on this since I spotted it still in the Green Room.
Here we find out that the wife was really the murderer, and even so, this is the softer of the two poems. It has a more calm and quiet tone than the other, and I can appreciate that because the other gave off the nighttime-paranoia-under-the-streetlights tone for me. With that, I think I like some aspects about both of them better than the other. The emotional impact and power with the last one isn't here in this one as much, it's more of a quiet feel to it, which I said before. The second stanza is one of my favorites here as it has some of the best lines in it.
The ending is something that's powerful in the way of being quiet though stanzas four and five here didn't really hit me as hard. I liked the idea of the death being reported in the news (at least that's how I interpreted it?), but the execution of that was weak. The one thing that I did wonder about this that was left quite open to the readers to interpret is if these characters, the husband and wife are ghosts or something of that sort.
We never really got to knowing and I think that not knowing may add something more to the poem but at the same time the imagery of being a ghost that would be appreciated. This is an interesting piece contrasting to the other because we really do get to see both perspectives but I would like a bit more of an emphasis on that, I think. Quiet and powerful and beautiful poem, just as the other.
I hope I helped and have a great day!
You may not know this, but years ago for a poetry contest for collab writing, Jagged and I wrote a similar piece, only it was focused on the mania of loving someone in death...while he buried her.
This is the softer of the two pieces, giving us a more ephemeral glance at her passing as she goes through memory, past, present, and into the momentary future with her husband who's been visited by the man in the gray hat. It's all eerie.
My main issue is with stanza five: "and I find it funny that you still think you can see right through me." This isssss characterization that we don't necessarily have enough context for? If that makes sense. Like we get close; we come near that point with the buildup on her side of the story (which ironically is more about him than her [go figure.])
But I think the flow of
doesn't work without it, so a replacement, an interim would be needed. A nod to the yellow porch lights would be a good idea. A nod to the frosted breath or year of panic would be good.
Finally, the ending is soft and strong and final and I love it. Just brush up on stanza five's shift in tone and you should have a masterful work on your hands.
Good job, Foxer Boxer.
Ty