Their hair so slick

They lose their lives to small hates so easily that you wonder if they are allergic to love. Perhaps these gangsters, revelling in their roadsters, go banging in their round pools of darkness to shut out the light, light so bright that it will reveal something sick about themselves. Their hair is so slick that it shines in the headlights and warns them to step away, find the shadows, a place that is far far away from cops and gallows. I thought myself a gangster once, true, tossing teens to the ground to grab their shoes; breaking windows with heads to see bleeding prism hues. But I learned otherwise when I found you: I discovered that life is a measured destruction of time already, so I renounced my life so small in order to kill myself in minutes rather than bullets and enjoy each and every doddering slip -- each and every juddering rise and fall as we watch the future play out having already gambled it all.

Reviews

[Saint No-One]

I am in love with this. It strikes me deeply. It was not so long ago I was a gangster with "hair so slick." I was saved by the right woman, the "her" referenced in my poem. I like the image of the "bleeding prism hues," it instantly conjures a sight, a sound a smell. The writing is prose like, and the rhymes subtle, concealed. It is street poetry at its best, the swing and swagger of human speech, a voice oh so cocky and self assured. I'm not sure about the image of "round pools of darkness." It didn't conjure anything in my mind, although I'd love to know what you meant by it.

[Saint No-One]

p.s. I would appreciate it if you could look at my poem "A Brighter Spark." This piece reminded me of it.

[TLK]

I'm glad that this has currency for people. I didn't know how human it was when I wrote it, the whole thing just sort of fell out. But I guess its odd mish-mash of old teen rebel movies and a year-on-year ageing sense of impending death is not so alien.

The 'round pools of darkness' are there to contrast against the light -- I have to admit that's the first thing I'd look at replacing if I was to rewrite again.
I am particularly glad you liked 'bleeding prism hues', I thought it summed up the violent image with a rather opposite kind of poetry.

Read request me up for A Brighter Spark to make sure I don't forget -- I'll be on it like crust on brown bread ASAP.

[TL Boehm]

this spills down the page reminiscent of Ginsberg. Love the word "Doddering" and the phrase "round pools of darkness." and life is a measured destruction of time already. Profound stuff. You don't waste words and I find that fascinating as it often takes me 500 hundred of them to get my motor started - and once I apply the gas, God only knows where I will end up. Usually its a stall out on the road to nowhere. This is great stuff.

[TLK]

Get your motor started, and only then turn on the voice recorder. I sit there thinking furiously until I reach a peak of cohesion -- and I just don't worry about having missed the agonising tens of minutes of unformed thought before then.

Of course, I then worry that what I write is so opaque without my inner context that no-one will understand it... thank you for helping me feel otherwise.

[Alvin L. Kathembe]

This is a beautiful prose poem - 'They lose their lives to small hates so easily that you wonder if they are allergic to love.' was particularly striking. I've read and heard so many stories of people dying over stepped shoes in clubs and other real or imagined slights. That was a really striking metaphor for that...
'Their hair is so slick...' I'm reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X and somehow as I read this line it brought to mind Malcolm's hatred of 'conks' - to him it was a symbol of mental subjugation...I doubt you meant it in the same way though. The poem's title and the line's placement in the piece vaguely impressed upon me in the same way, somehow.
Interesting thought - life a 'measured destruction of time.' In this YOLO generation, someone needs to step up and ask; You Only Live Once - why waste it?
This was a beautiful, carefully constructed piece. Life IS a gamble, and the only call is all in.

[Trigorin]

I personally don't like prose poetry very much, but this does paint a very vivid picture, so you've succeeded in that regard. Great use of imagery, and I think the tone fits - very sort of uncaring and sharp. Good work.

[Emily B]

damn this is top shelf stuff :)

[TLK]

I re-read it a few minutes ago and realised it was desperately worthy of being my 'featured' creation. Thank you for appreciating it.

[Emily B]

any time

[Pax]

seems like a gamble of life my friend... the clock is ticking its hands... we rise and fall... we do this for its part of 'survival' and survival is life isn't...

your poems are full of riddles my friend... keep it up!

[Ed Hart]

you couldn't have arrived at this if you hadn't survived all that; the good can't make the world better, only the bad can do that