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gutterbreed β A Description
Published: 2005-10-24 05:18:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 121; Favourites: 0; Downloads: 5
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Description
The immediate effect is noiseSeeping into the floor, doorknobs shaking and
rattling
As size seven sneakers abuse
Burgundy stairways, the walls on either side painted like
Church windows
There's shrieks of girls, young women
As they grow
And stretch
And reach past their immaturity,
[but between you and me,
they haven't yet]
I try to tread softly, or else
Father's grip tightens on what hair he has left
As he attempts [and fails]
To think past the adolescent tornado
That has struck the upper floor at
Precisely the same time he sits on Pollack chairs
And puts his elbows at either side of his
Poetry class homework
He was a drummer, with rhythm
But no words
And our shouted phrases drown his attempts to find
His own
We're radioctive, we whisper blaringly of
Our next indoor adventure
Our skin starts to glow from too many energy drinks
But is snuffed when we open a
Certain robin's egg door,
The cage of lingering Camel Filters castoffs
Mother arrives silently in a black classic,
Her heels clicking immaculately from driveway to front door
And there's an unheard pause when her hands, splinter free,
Push the front door wide
To free our spirits.
Her first words ask for a martini,
Her second for love
As we crowd into her arms in hopes we'll catch more of this
Rich, sultry voice, one of
Class and power and jazz riffs from a
Tenor sax
If we didn't appreciate the fullness of good scotch,
we'd be disowned
Such a nuclear image,
The walls envy Spandex trying to hold us all
But we breathe laughter and music and
Too much cigarette smoke
In our home away from home
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Comments: 7
speak for yourself, pleasant smell. yech, both my parents always make me leave my jacket outsie for a night after i get back from up there.
i realy like your descritions of their parents, of the whole place, though i never thought i'd seem Jim imortalized in poem. . . .
your fifth stanza, the one that starts "we're radioactive" rally caught my eyeβthere's a lot in those few sentences, but it flows really smoothly.
i feel like i can't give you and objective comment on this, cause i know exactly what you're talking about. this is a great description, though, and definetly something you should show to gayle and parker, if you haven't already.
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yeah, jim seems so nondescript that one can never really find him immortalized in anything but his love for rock n' roll, or his drum playing.
but they both heard it (parker read it for them) - i never heard from them what they think. i hope i didn't insult them or anything...
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Sounds like an all-American family to me!
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if there ever was one
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small crit:
There's shrieks of girls, young woman
is that supposed to be 'women'? it seemed like it was.
i really liked this piece. i liked that it seemed to be your house but then at the end it isn't. that's a good subtle twist. but this really takes off with the characterization of the Mother. i thought she was just brilliantly portrayed; i knew exactly who you were talking about.
great images, nice use of language.
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ah, you're right - me and my typos...
...the mother, well, she's quite the woman a real life. my martial arts teacher is thoroughly intimidated by her, she emanates that kind of power. if i could capture even a fraction of her in this poem, it'd be nothing short of a masterpiece. but it's really almost impossible, given the immensity of her character.
thank you for the skyward thumb
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