Poetry / Upper Middle Class
He was consciously anonymous,
staying up in late motel rooms
to watch scrambled porn.
He ignored the life he led,
pausing briefly for the songs
that were written for him.
Why lie? He waited for himself.
His wife was home alone,
browsing home renovation catalogues
to find the best pool boy package.
She loved her husband very much
but honestly we all have needs,
we all need someone to come with
when no one’s coming home.
He never went first or last,
showed up at the exact time
in the exact same way
at different places in the world
with maps he memorized last night.
All his cabs led to a subway
or an airport, all his planes
to the same chain of motels,
all his money to his mortgage,
his car, and future children’s
college fund. All his furniture
led her back to him
when she sat in his easy chair,
stared at his television,
opened his cabinets and drank
his favorite scotch,
she wondered when
he came home that touch,
that bored kiss, that mumbled
jetlag question if
she had dinner ready,
the valium and martinis
put away, the silky langerie
sleeping in the closet,
meant a kind of love
they could ease into,
curl up together
on a plush leather couch
while the television
glares blue on their lax faces.
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This seemed to have a weak start that I thought was going nowhere but then it picked up momentum and pleasantly surprised me.
I liked the line “we all need someone to come with…” I also liked: “that silky lingerie sleeping in the cupboard…”
I thought the “valium and martinis” was a bit too cliched.
This poem paints a lonely picture that offers some comfort in a most fitting way at the end.
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in late motel rooms --- late in motel rooms? Or a diff. adjective?
memorized last night --- kind of awkward. I think that may work better if it said something like “the night before”. Its something to do with tenses.
Stanzas 4-7.. I like what you’re saying, but I think it would be a lot more powerful if you reorganize it a bit. Perhaps a period after scotch, and moving ‘she wondered’ to the next stanza—distinguishing her thoughts from his actions. (Also, there ought to be some punctuation after ‘led her back to him’.
I like your imagery—nice, sad, tired. Aside from some pretty basic typos and the line/stanza stuff, this is a pretty strong piece.
I’d work on cleaning up you sentences a little, as well. You seem to have a tendency to try to put too many thoughts into one sentence, which is a bit much for the reader to take.
Keep it up.
Love, love.
There is a tragic element to this piece, eloquently stated, that is all too common and yet as a poem it falters on rhythm and meter, reads more like an commentary. And some of the lines aren’t quite finished or work: “we all need someone to come with…;” why do cabs lead to subways? Planes don’t land at motels. Why are the martinis and valium put away? Where did she put them? The guts of what you are trying to say are there, yet somehow it is still illusive and not quite flushed out. I like this poem, but I think it still needs work.
You have spelling errors here but nothing major and spell/check can correct that. The stanzas aren’t equal or metered the same but it may be Urbis’ transfer. You tell a big story here that sounds like a great deal of married people today. It is a shame but your poem is probably very true to fact and others won’t have a hard time relating to it.
March 15, 2007
Deleted User
Such truth. I like the visuals in this. Good job. Simple words spoken with a strong impact.
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