*
Paulie was the toughest kid I ever met
not that he was a good fighter or anything, because he wasn't
he'd just had the piss pounded out of him so many times by his old man
that he didn't care anymore
which is why we were tight to begin with
we walk
as always
past the wet trees fruited with desire
to the hushed thrill of a crowd slipping away
cold and quiet in the new snow
but for breaths and the crackle of twigs under boot
you and me, paulie
yeah, I finally left her
Tina's a fat bitch who only ever talks about how beautiful she was
when she was young, and she's not a day over 25
looks for validation in all the obvious places
which, of course, have been picked bare,
and once you've said
"no, you're not really that fat at all"
once, well, you just can't say it again
ever
to anyone
so Paulie and I
under the sizzle of the streetlights
cock our heads like sparrows
at the softest sound and we laugh and we slurp beer and
our lives are closing in on us and we're scared
and we run
a fury of lights
the black snake patient in a nest of angry numbers
the sad, resigned slump of thin buildings huddled
together for warmth like children beaten
by a merciless winter - the impossible
the insane uniqueness we felt
and still feel as we fall into the communal white
*
A contest entry
- Glass Skin - by Invitation by jantastic.
3523 points, ended September 1, 2008, 3 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 48 of 48
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"but for breaths and the crackles of twigs under boot" - 'crackles' [plural] seemed awkward to me with all the other plurals so close to it.
this was simply amazing. I can feel my zipper cutting into me. -
love the billy collins style (reminds me anyway) in the first few stanzas and then that last stanza(and the second) - beautifully poetic with language and imagery that wraps around me - you cover all the senses (and then some) ...
fabulous poetry with many stealables ... >> Gina
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oh and
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normally i don't say anything - and it is of course always the hosts decision and TOTALLY respect that but in doing my internet gambling -- i would have been smoked. i had this first all the way through.
anyway -- it is delicious and irreverent and all the things I appreciate about your Voice.
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thank you. what happened t-yer pomer?
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I took it out about a week and half ago when I decided that I didn't want to participate in the forums and contests here anymore.
I totally respect janny jan jan and sent her a note when I pulled it -- I wrote the pome for her - it was a gift.
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Nice anyway, with the mossy water and the slap slap of the wakes moving into the shore. Dragonflies jetting quicker than they appear capable.
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I saw dragonflies this weekend too. They are red now and blue in the spring.
Yes indeed he caught TONS of trout with those flies. And my mother eventually stopped crying. That same closet also caused another tragedy -- my father had been saving cash (probably netted from betting on horses) in a pocket in an old jacket of his to take us to Disney World. One day my mother cleaned the closet and threw the jacket and all the cash out....
I remember bawling my eyes out. Course we still went.
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I went fishing with mia this past weekend. She lasted about 12 minutes. bobber moving left with the current and drifting in towards us slacking the line, but never going under.
We didn't catch jack.
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Fishing is pretty snooze inducing unless you catch something but you gotta sit there doing nothing while you wait -- odd there must be something metaphorical about life or something in there.
I've always thought bone fishing looks very cool -- those wild blue flats somewhere off the coast of the Bahamas but probably I'd hate it.
When we were kids, my older brothers used to make me and my little brother dig for worms and pick moths off the trees for them to use as bait. I liked that.
And once, my brother casted into my other brother's head. Baby cried and cried.
Oh! Another fishing story! My kid brother decided to learn how to tie is own flies (might have told you this) and one day he went into the closet and saw some material he thought would be great for this. So he snipped about 6 inches of this said material off -- later that year, my mother went to put on her fur coat and there was a long strip of fur missing from the coat
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No. You didnt tell me that one. Did he catch anything with the mink fly?
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it was a good one.
when you catch a good one, yer supposed to gut it and clean it and put it in ice, not toss it back.
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this one has an interesting bled of some really nice imagery and that raw ed edge we see sometimes
I sometimes wonder if I intentionally stifle that raw in my own writing at times then I think maybe it just isn't my true voice. It's hard to learn to like your own voice and not want to have others sometimes. Well... what he fuck was I talking about
there are some places I might suggest some different line breaks or slight edits but I know your work well enough to know some of those things are intentional in this write
I think what it boils down to is I always admire your balls...
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this has everything in it...
that piece of survival at the beginning, like a fist of invincible even when learning you aren't smacks you in the teeth...
I remember knowing better but never being able to shut up.. and consequently wound up paying the consequences more than enough ( never wise to call the toughest girl in town a slut after she's insulted you.. not really )
then the eventual curling inward into tight acquaintances with those who understand what it's like to be swallowed by that never ending needy line of am I lovable people
and the realization that once you've lied the dishonesty of it sits like bile in your throat. so you spit out your truth walking further away or find resignation in silence.
but the end is that beautiful big fat fucking zero that levels it all out into nothing.. knowing ourselves as unique as one small snowflake, and as meaningless as any one is in the greater whole each creates when one looks at the blanket they build into cover
my comment perhaps a bit too metaphorical.. so I'll just say .. this one makes me remember I'm not alone
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Sorry. Had to delete that last comment. Too much leading the witnesses.
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I didn't want to comment on this because secretly I believed that if I did, then I'd have to acknowledge that yet again, I shall have to lose to your startling blend of rough magick.
But ah well, needs must, and I cannot allow simple jealousy to prevent me from oohing and awe-ing such mastery and once more will creak my old back to its favorite position whenever I read a work of the great Mr. P.
Here goes...
You are the best...damn your eyes.
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Hey, you're a wizard with the fucking smiley guys.
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this hurts more now.
i think it's the present tense of the final stanza that actually kills.
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I'm probably coming here late enough to have missed all the revisions.
This poem kicks ass. Starts out, I was thinking, oh, easy brusk voice, and "Paulie," some Chicago (!) gangster talk here, and so it went, but then the last stanza, well, it's like Tony Soprano weeping at his therapist's. Twisted my brain right up, it did.
Fucking great.
I've been 3-clapping for a while now, so you sold out well after I did.
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Oh, that's it. Perfect. I can hear Gandolfini (sp?) reciting that last bit. I'll never hear it the same again.
Wait. Isn't Gandolfini Tony Soprano? If not, I'll feel like quite a tool. I don't getz no HBO. But Gandolfini is da best. Reminds me of my dad. MY dad's a cross between Gandolfini and Mike Ditka. Really. -
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Yup, that's the guy. Hope I didn't wreck it for you.
(You're still a tool, of course.)
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Interesting contrast between the less poetic matter-of-fact first and second to last stanza and the more flowery (not quite the right word) other stanzas. Dreamier when focusing on the present with Paulie and harsher when discussing the past.
Nice friendship shown. It sounds almost like a love affair. That might interpretation might have hit my harder because I kept reading "cock our heads like sparrows" as "cock in our heads like sparrows." (Don't know what it is about your poetry that makes me add or delete words at random.)
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Yeah, I kind of thought it might come off like that, and then I thought, so what? Maybe that's where it goes. Let it go where it wants.
you stop doing that, birchy.
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You are the master.
Great body of writing here...
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Oh, my God, this is incredible writing. I am there....I am drawn in by the characters... what a wonderful poem to read outloud.... a journey... Bravo!!!!
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This is great writing, rich in visual and emotion without telling - and that takes some doing when one writes a story poem like this one. I think the only other person who could give you a go in this department is perhaps Guy (grm - when he's here, lol).
~ Nicolette
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maybe stumble into the communal white -- yeah. stumble.
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i think it was all the hawaiian i was smoking that made me and Paula feel that insane uniqueness...
tumble into the communal white would be a nice sound thing.
Stanza 1 -- so are you friends cause you just don't care anymore or cause your pops beat the crap out of you? I don't want to know I'm saying look how nice and wide open it is -- you could drop that last line of S1 to open S2 and give it a pause (I know you won't but I still like to consider the experiment in my head).
Stanza 2 -- i don't think i like "just as always" sounds too formal for you and paulie - maybe just "like always" or maybe just take it out. fruited with desire is disco. all very soundy this stanza -- it goes from loud to quiet to the loud/quiet of stepping on twigs in new snow which is so quiet but loud.
That Stanza 4. It is filled with stuff. Stuff that isn't nice but so very real. except no one ever says them really -- but you.
5: do you need the walking again? I think we know you're still walking
6: angry nest of numbers -- well. yeah. you are pretty good.
good endings on those lines that end with:
huddled
beaten
last stanza reminds us we're living in the Waste Land.
It is really good you are writing again. You know that?
xo
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What do you think if I cut the "and" off of "run" and smash those two stanzas together?
That "and" bother you just dangling away like that? -
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yeah it sort of does bother me -- that and.
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Writing. Yeah, sometimes you just have to start the thing up and hope it takes you somewhere interesting.
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I thought about juicing that verb a bit, ("fall"), but I want to get there fast. Everything i thought of slows it down, as would tumble or stumble.
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ah going for speed there. got it.
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You're the best Ed, the fucking best...
al
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OMG! You know Tina?
I love how circular this is, inevitable rather than claustrophic.
2nd stanza- jaw droppingly, gut wrenchingly, nuts kickingly poetical
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once, well, you just can't say it again
ever
to anyone
ends there ya know, might put those last two voices elsewhere,
bestest Ed poem. and that's saying something.
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then some street sweeper comes along and just sprays water on the moment and you are left wet, limp and with just a hint of city slime hanging off an ear...it's hard to wipe it all away unless you fade with it.
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A tip of the hat, Sir.
Really a great read. This is so "all of us", so acessable and universal, and yet personal. Bukish to be sure, but with a whiff of Mark Twain, and a hint of Frank Zappa.
I love reading my teachers from the day! lol.
I knew this contest would school me big-time.
Yep!
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- this makes me anxious- the fervor and the fury and the pace of
your pace
and the maddening indecision and
fall off point
you write story better than anyone on this site
"cocking our heads like sparrows"
in one line we watch you
watching you
excellent..
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The story reminded me of Buk. There was a poem he wrote about him and his friend shooting firecrackers in the neighborhood and it just had the same feel... but then you put a bunch of poetry in there and it kicked Buk's arse.
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thank you. I don't remember that buk one.
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a 4th of July in the early 30's
from
Slouching Toward Nirvana
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this should set the bench mark nice and high for everyone else to bust a hip trying to top this fucker. I loved that
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Oh, my. I hope no one gets hurt.
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I am barring up for the Olympics Ed. Every fucking metaphor and simile under the five rings will be dragged out and paraded around the poetry stadium of AP. Its going to be a long two weeks to keep up this crap.
PS can’t wait for the clay pigeon shoot with the substituted Tibetan Monks catapulted into the air. That and of course the marathon being run with gas masks
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I was watching some tennis last night. Holy fuck, Andy Roddick hits the ball hard.
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Will the relay be run with a cigarette baton?
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aahhh this kicks ass. i'll be back
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