You get into a habit
of knowing the hours
the neighbours keep.
The Lithuanians left
moved on and I
still look for lights in blank
windows
but
no slippers wait on the floor
by the french doors
for their return
the waft of cigarette smoke
from their veranda
no longer pervades our hall
full bodied bass and treble
volume
vibrates our ornaments
from the shelves no more.
In the garage
where once thumped
exercise machines
and sculptured flesh and muscle
pumped and puffed
pushed weights and grunted
to the rhythmic breaking
of pain
barriers
silence settles damply.
The lonely wind
funnels deadletters
into the gutters
parodies the ice maiden's
roller- blades' grinding whir
the backstreet yawns
devoid of foreign cars
black as a sleeping cat
eyes closed tight
without the relentless blue
of Vlad's LED alarm
flash. flash. flash. flash.
A contest entry
- a lack of words by freestallion.
600 points, ended January 29, 18 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 17 of 17
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your poew is very vivid and realistic! i realy liked it!
Lithuanians are cool i used to live in Lituania. I had to put that in. Any way it felt very real and raw not fake like some poetry i have to read in school.
Bravo
Meghan
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This is beautiful. Written so starkly with such realistic images, with a lonely and melancholy feel. I can feel the silence in my bones.
Thanks for making my contest a success. Write on!
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personal universe is pretty queer
like the macro one
full of spheres generating elipses,
void and holes
where matter sucumbs to its own gravity
what's left
the straight lines, the cuts
is just the pragmatism of time
always death
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You know just what a poem should be. You have the knack. Each word seems to fit so perfectly and leads gentle step step step to the other softly.
Oh so lovely.
We can miss even those things which often were a pain in the neck! Especially when described so gorgeously, as you have done here!
Here here.
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Not writing poems is good for you.
In typical fashion I would say you could get rid of most of S2 - keep L1 (or perhaps use it as a subtitle even).
I think the last stanza is quite good. Quite.
You do empty good.
Lisa
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It has been a couple of years, but there used to be people living in the house across from my room.
It was comforting to see the attic light on, the flickering blue of the television screen, proof of life in the house over the way.
I think we are more a like than I realize, Stef.
I understand this one. The quiet where life once was; the missing beat of footsteps, lights on and off..etc.
I observe, too.
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I remember your people. Have they gone? Across the front street before things changed so much, (so long ago I think the computer we had was a games Atari
there was a guy who used to sit in one of the attic rooms opposite on teh front street at a very professional looking drawing board every night until midnight. I never knew who he was, but on the odd night he was not there I used to worry that he was okay.
Thanks for stopping by, Suzi.
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The house has been abandoned for over a year
someone came and stole all the plumbing from it
it regularly houses squatters.
it is a sad and depressing house now -
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Having read this poem I feel a regret that you lost all your previous postings. The opening stanza reads so well. I found myself nodding in agreement immediately. I like the way you mention the smells, sounds that you experienced, noticed, before informing us that they are no more - rather than the other way round. There is an atmosphere of melancholy which I like. Yes, it is strange what we find ourselves missing but I would never miss not hearing a neighbour's alarm go off. Great conclusion to this poem.
I'd like to add you to my favourites, if that is OK.
P.S. I remember Mars at 4d, do you remember when Snickers was called Marathon?
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Indeed I do remember Marathon. And Lucky Bags in the coloured greaseproof paper.
Thanks for your kind comment, Andrew.
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Strange what you find yourself missing, isn't it? The stuff you amuse yourself by gains significance beyond anything logical, and when it's gone, it leaves a void.
I've missed the backstreet musings. Those boys inspired some of your best, this being one of them, I think. Loneliness is evoked here by an empty apartment and by sparse writing; the seasonal change, too - it's as if they fled with the birds, come winter. I wonder, did they know how much they meant to you?
flash. flash. flash. flash.
Yum, Stef, just yum.
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I knew I would miss all their vibrancy, and dreaded the day they would surely leave. They needed somewhere bigger as 9 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment was getting a bit much for some of them I think. I loved them, they made me look at so many things differently. I think they did know. I hope so.
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you make me want to live in a city
did I ever tell you that before?
I mean mostly, all I want is the wide open space of green, big sky, silence, no people, wild birds and critters only.
but then your writing, often, mostly, always,
PULLS me into the flux of living right up against others, all kinds, Lithuanians and smoke and lights, and leftover converstations and longings and all those delicious details you are so good at. So thank you for keeping the peopled world in view, (of course it is silly since I teach tons and see clients so I am amidst people every day...but perhaps that is why I want to live in the country) oh how did this end up being about me?
sigh.
back to you.
back to your boys next door and then not.
the presence of absence is one of the best subjects ever.
may your windows bless you, as you bless them so well.
both you and niko.
happy winter,
ps now didn't you write some book?!
k
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Kat, I love it when you make it about you, because that is what it is all for, about each and every one of us. We are fortunate, our town is not big and you only have to go 5 miles out of it to imagine that you might be the only person left in the world. It is odd though, isn't it, to be alone amidst the crowds and crowded when alone.
Ah, no not quite anything as dignified and worthwhile as a book but I'm trying to write a trashy ripping yarn of a (long, long ) story.
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i adore the voyeristic quality of this... reminds me so much of how we don't want to admit we are peeping toms... but in a way really we all are! Funny how we learn who is who and what is what around us and changes stir kinks and wonder all at once... and i wait and wonder who is moving in next? hopefully someone with sculptured muscles hee hee
there is a beat to the start of this... well maybe more like a rythm and i love it... how you controled how i was to read. That is why i love reading YOU... i learn about flow, I learn about how to control a reader and keep them at the pace I want them and pause them where i want them... i learned a great deal of that from your work.
loved this.
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We are aren't we. I don't know where the line actualy is between being observant and interested in what is going on around me , and in the lives of other people, and in being nosey. I try not to cross any lines. I keep looking everytime someone comes to their gate- the shop below the apartment is still there, so I get the aroma of French grub wafting up. It is strange though, what and who attracts our interest and imagination and sends us on voyages of learning and discovery. At least I can say a few words of Lietuwe now.
Loves and thanks Heidi.
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