Poetry / Six Blocks
Six Blocks
Riding down in the elevator-
floor is dirty, someone’s
spilled something again.
Lobby, echoes, glass doors and little fingerprints,
Busy street outside-
It might rain.
Walking.
Walking over the bridge
above the river, my
hair now damp from
the misty spray of the falls.
A pair of young lovers in my way
leaning over
clasping hands
No words…gazing
At the swirling blackness and foam-
I don’t stop.
I’ve seen it before.
See them before-
Different faces
but every day they are here.
Walking.
The bridge complete-
becomes sidewalk.
A squat building, dented doors,
Faint smell of gasoline,
Cars with lifted hoods-
sick patients in
auto repair triage,
Leaking their life-fluids on the asphalt,
Awaiting surgery from the doc
In the mass-transit-blue shirt
His name stitched on the pocket.
doctor ‘Bob’.
The man in dirty jeans
Is standing alone-
He pulls at his cap-
Eyes fixed on the ground,
He mutters silent curses,
angry he couldn’t fix it himself.
Somehow-
He makes me feel bad.
I don’t even know him.
Walking-
Sidewalk smooth,
Then cracked, chunks missing
Watch your step
Coming at me
A young woman,
heaving a gigantic stroller,
Two fat, barefoot toddlers
inside, heads bobbling
Like rear-window hula dancers
She is encircled-
By a gaggle of smaller versions
of herself,
bopping and bumping along
chatty little gooses
with Kool-Aid stains on their
little goose shirts.
I step into the street
to let them pass
In a cloud of warbles and peeps.
She doesn’t even look twenty-five,
And my heart kind of hurts-
Why?
I don’t even know her.
Why is it
that I can’t travel six blocks from home,
without writing these tales in my head?
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This 151 word review has not been unlocked.
Very vivid description. Did you mean “see” or “seen” when you said “See them before”.
I will read some of your other work.
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very nicely done i love descriptive work i was walking right along side you
Again I have enjoyed one of you journeys. You are a sponge of charatrization. You pay attention to your suroundings and write them down with such flair and detail, but you knew that. Love to read more. Your friend Phill
This 348 word review has not been unlocked.
I like your overall thought here, but I think it has flowing issues. I had to stop several times to stop and re-read a sentence. If you are going to write in a stanza form, you might want to make sure that you break the sentences in proper spots.
I like this. You have a really definitive style. I love the gaggle of little kids with the mom and the auto repair guy. I think you should pick a name though for his shirt…something a little offbeat maybe that ties in with your theme…I don’t know I think that would be interesting. You should write short stories, you’ve got a great liquid voice that would translate really well. You remind me of Janet Fitch. (whom I adore)
love it
October 15, 2006
Deleted User
this is nice verse and verse is the reforming of prose so that the reader can follow the author’s rhythm. this reformation seems necessary to a writer, because prose is so shallow… relying on dictionaries and on the person you’re talking to nodding at the right time.
the sentiment is excellent and the landscape is well seen. we follow your eye, and your eye is always focused. of course, your eye is inventing itself in the verse and you’re pointing with your words, and that’s what makes this literature instead of just a newspaper story. literature must be something special i think…. some kind of writing which brings the reader into the mind of someone else… something we don’t allow to happen very often.
nice piece of writing.
I really like the description that you’ve portrayed in this and it’s simplicity, particularly when you’re talking about the cars at the station that are waiting to be fixed.
(Cars with lifted hoods-
sick patients in
auto repair triage,
Leaking their fluids on the asphalt,)
There’s some very vivid imagery there!
Anyway, you’ve definitely caught some great thoughts on the inner-workings of the poets’ mind! Nicely done!
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