Act III

 

Thank God that’s over.

The curtain made last call

and stumbled to the car,

catching his tassels in the door,

she gazed out the window

as they drove home in silence

only the reminants of whiskey and

the scent of sulfur

the hiss of her cigarette between lips

crashing through muteness,

while the smoke autographed the air;

 

He stopped abruptly,

to pay attention to the light;

and counting ahead, he wished

the sky was darker and the

stars still existed beyond

highway exits in the middle of nowhere;

he pondered over her sullen

face; thought of when he’d last loved her

expressionless, he tapped the brakes.

 

She glanced wide; focused closely

Confiding she was tired.

Worlds interrupted the bearable;

He was forced to stop again;

 

Velvet full of mud, he draped across the yard,

Opened the backdoor and waited for her

Curtsy and she silently applauded her

incapabilities, particularly that of making

a grand exit.

 

 

Author's Note

I'm not sure where this idea came from. I'm open to critcism and thoughts....

Reviews

[John D Phillips]

There is so much that I love about this:
the revolving of the two perspectives, the way they overlap in language and mood between the stanzas;
the loose, shifting framework of lines, vaguely structured but not conforming, as if the form itself is blurry and dazed;
the subtlety of the voices - hers tired and ragged, but certain, his nervous and unsure and dutiful;
the late-night, bleary-eyed splash pattern of images and motions and lights, as if half-remembered;
the steady rhythm of the language broken by the drunken lurch of a comma or enjambment, or the sudden focus of a full-stop or stanza break.

There is only one place where I felt un-bewitched. At the end of the second stanza, the enjambment between "...thought of when he'd last loved her / expressionless, he tapped the brakes."
I am inclined to think that those may not be a quite connected thought, and that since the rest of the piece follows a general scheme of punctuation between unique thoughts, it might be helpful to include something more substantial than the line break there.

Everything else is sublime.

[LJW]

Like a movie you could watch over and over again.

[Gandré]

This sarcastic piece - ending perfect - I liked a lot. I am sorry to say so, and I am not a femmnist (not yet) but men like competition with women. I totally agree, he was one with a vast amount of insecurity, wasn't he. And I liked your irony and yet poetic style while saying this story in poem.

[Emily B]

Perfectly written. It takes a poet to describe this scene. A painter couldn't do it. . .

[Samson J. Krupnik]

fabian g. franklin's suggesting a writer's cafe convention! what happened to the old school!

[Samson J. Krupnik]

how do you market poems? do people make money on poems?

anyway i'm not supposed to use this like a message board so i will say - this was one of your best! I got into it. autographed the air....velvet mud.....good stuff lady.

[Blackbirdsong]

Those moments when we make those grand exits are the best, and you really described that so well.

I especially loved these lines:

"only the reminants of whiskey and
the scent of sulfur
the hiss of her cigarette between lips
crashing through muteness,
while the smoke autographed the air;"

The last line is just perfect too.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This is the fourth road poem I have read in as many days, excluding one that I wrote...seems the whole cafe is restless, maybe we all need a road trip! That would be cool, a writer's cafe convention. I loved this line " while the smoke autographed the air"...brilliant. The whole dang thing is great though, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. much enjoyed.

[Ed Hart]

these poems don't come from nowhere...