ShopDreamUp AI ArtDreamUp
Deviation Actions
Literature Text
In the tattered corner booth
he tells me Jazz music
is just The Blues on Prozac,
and his brown suit is already his coffin
and the white smoke of the club
snakes upwards towards the lights
like a spirit fleeing
and quietly, underneath this aura, I sit and listen
and my red wine is
something like a lost metaphor I can't find a handle
to place a word around
and through the blackness between us both
he tells me
the story of his Pa, dying so young
and then another of his own life
on the railways of the humid South
where he found his one blessed love
and how he never got the chance
to truly hold her
or time the rhythm of her heart
because the war took him
too far West, far too young.
He drops his whiskered chin
and his voice breaks a little
between the drones of the saxophone
as he recalls her soft auburn hair
and the long curve of her neckline
and how her perfect fingers
turned the pages of the psalms on Sunday mornings
and then he says;
she was the everything to me
and he tells how he could never love
not like that again
like the war might have stolen all of his courage
and a little of something else as well
like a spark, or a light that was once inside him
and now I can't choose his sweat from his tears
so I just stare at my untouched glass
and I swear I can almost hear
beneath the hum of this raw bluesy night,
all the music that has faded away.
he tells me Jazz music
is just The Blues on Prozac,
and his brown suit is already his coffin
and the white smoke of the club
snakes upwards towards the lights
like a spirit fleeing
and quietly, underneath this aura, I sit and listen
and my red wine is
something like a lost metaphor I can't find a handle
to place a word around
and through the blackness between us both
he tells me
the story of his Pa, dying so young
and then another of his own life
on the railways of the humid South
where he found his one blessed love
and how he never got the chance
to truly hold her
or time the rhythm of her heart
because the war took him
too far West, far too young.
He drops his whiskered chin
and his voice breaks a little
between the drones of the saxophone
as he recalls her soft auburn hair
and the long curve of her neckline
and how her perfect fingers
turned the pages of the psalms on Sunday mornings
and then he says;
she was the everything to me
and he tells how he could never love
not like that again
like the war might have stolen all of his courage
and a little of something else as well
like a spark, or a light that was once inside him
and now I can't choose his sweat from his tears
so I just stare at my untouched glass
and I swear I can almost hear
beneath the hum of this raw bluesy night,
all the music that has faded away.
Literature
A Gift
I keep thinking about burying myself in your embrace, my face in your hair. And while I regret the fact that we both seem to be too much of damaged, quietly broken cowards to even talk about that night when we so naturally, seamlessly, gravitated towards each other, seeking warmth and comfort underneath the covers - using our sleep-pliant bodies to protect each other from the night - I am glad that it happened at all. Because to know that it is not a thing of fiction to actually feel like that in someone's arms… I am afraid you will never know how much of a gift it was that you unwittingly gave me. Still, I would give near anything for
Literature
Entwined
In dew-bright dawn the green sap runs
From ageless roots the cycles draw
The summer bloom from winter’s thaw
Our youth has seen uncounted suns
The moonlight wanes; the known stars fall
Yet still we live and love anew
We rise in joy like summer dew
Return Beyond at autumn’s call
And so we dance the early light
Eternal hearts in time entwined
The turning cycle spinning, blind
Embracing us in secret night
Literature
Autumn Stag
undrowned in your sleep
her morning star still hangs
long across fields, the crooked
shore on the bay rise and roll
through paths that your father
and mother went strolling down
half drunk, and laughing like hell,
before the war and wheat prices
broke their backs look—
for love, a grey squirrel leaps
from the branch of a blackened hemlock
for courage, an ochre line slices straight
from stone to a wolverine’s borough
for death, a murmuration of birds
wraps the new sun in a shroud
of undulating fist the bottle of Stoli is empty
yet you’re alive, eager to dance
a jig on the sill of the sky you hope
an
Suggested Collections
Featured in Groups
..
© 2010 - 2024 brassteeth
Comments43
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Overall Vision Originality Technique ImpactHi there!
My initial impressions of this poem were that you kind of figured out the narrative as you wrote it--so you started off with this scene of two guys talking about jazz and Prozac (why is that italicized, by the way?) and then it evolved into a more emotional exploration of this guy, and then finally came back to the narrator gaining insight into loss and that kind of thing.
While I loved the development of the imagery over the course of this piece--and the way you brought it back to the blues (and took advantage of the fact that you gave the reader an image of what it means, so you could say 'raw bluesy night' without creating confusion), I think the narrative side of this piece needs a bit more consideration.
There's an element of nostalgia and regret from the old man that I felt like was left hanging as the last stanza goes back to being about the narrator (also: "choose his sweat"? That's an odd choice of words there). I felt like the poem should end the way it began, or at least mirror it: the narrator saying a simile to the old man, or the old man saying something as pithy as the opening.... Is there music playing in the background here? Perhaps that could become the backbone of the narrative, even though it's not mentioned directly at all.
I was also not a fan of the comma usage; I think you could do with fewer. This may be personal preference alone, though.
Anyway, the imagery is fantastic and I love how easy it was to connect the colors, sounds, and emotions here. Just make sure those loose ends are tied up.