This Poem was Submitted By: Thomas Edward Wright On Date: 2005-11-24 06:54:34 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
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At The 318 Where
an acoustic smoke cripples eccentric patrons
(others with affinity for her (god)-dam
divinity night-wear-clad eu-genies
skive in sleek esthetic conversation
their amped & miked attitude oblivious to
us armchair winos) lost & cruising in
the backseat down dark alleys
of yesteryear licentiously lit up for (Jes)us
her vocals tight tender & tenderly
launch deep cabernet at merlot’s dark throat
climb & steal all but bitterness away
visceral temptress, quasi-medicinal -
privately caresses yet-repressed regrets,
plucks out that last sin-singed eyebrow
later on, toward home, I softly vow
that had she needed me to stay -
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Copyright © November 2005 Thomas Edward Wright
Additional Notes:
For Mell, the meal's dessert.
This Poem was Critiqued By: arnie s WACHMAN On Date: 2005-12-07 14:09:14
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.64583
Okay, I can see why you're so high on the list but this was the last in my list to vote on...guess you really don't need my votes do you? I take it that the 318 is a club? Strippers? Lots of cigars smokes? Were you one of the eccentrics there?
Being a singer myself I only question the tight vocals. If you mean the rhythm then that's okay. Or perhaps a trill? A singer can't be tight as they sing or else the vocal chords would squeal~! or am I reading too much into this? I liked the double entendres of sin.
This Poem was Critiqued By: Terry A On Date: 2005-11-27 23:35:21
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.92857
This is marvelous. You intwine so much metaphor and image, it reads like we're eating
the words, each image an explosion of sensuous experience. Taking the reader into the
experience, almost transcending reality by deepening experience of it. Better then
marvelous; this poem is alive.
Terry
This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2005-11-27 22:42:30
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.94444
Tom:
It’s a nice riff of cc’s, and I can’t ignore that any more than I
could ignore chocolate mousse cheesecake. And then your kinship with
sounds, and light-swearing. It’s a Midwesterner’s all-out barbecue.
I have to have some. I mean, who else would write “skive in sleek”
and “licentiously lit up” (omitting the rest of the line) for comment,
for sampling? And repeat ‘tender’ in your “tender/tenderly” way?
Too much cabernet and merlot. And ess’s in “caresses yet-repressed”
are almost throw-away in casualness. Cha! Your “sin-singed eyebrow”
is so un-plucked. The only real sins are of omission. I’ve done nothing
but repeat your good phrases.
A toast to Mell.
Toussen taks,
Joanne
This Poem was Critiqued By: Elaine Marie Phalen On Date: 2005-11-27 08:12:40
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Tom, what a rare and remarkable thing this is!
The writing itself is sinuous as a sax melody. Even the shape works to further this effect. It hauls me into a smoky club and sits me down among the other denizens ... and we reminisce. I love the way you blend imagery, so there's a synthesis of aural and olfactory, for instance, in L1. "Cripples eccentric patrons" -- nice! Memory is a powerful soporific. So is music, especially blues and jazz. The wordplay is delightful, too.
This goddess of sound and nightwear could be a real singer, or even a hospital patient imagining herself as a torch chanteuse. 318 could be club name, or hospital room number. "Cripples" is a clue. "Visceral temptress, quasi-medicinal" offers a lot of possibilities. Is she, in fact, a metaphor for something else? Even a death-figur(ine)? "Lit up for (Jes)us" also suggests a wider interpretation. Meanwhile, the rhythm sways and the armchair winos -- immobile, hypnotized -- absorb it all. They've been there; they've heard this before, cruised these bleak midnight streets. They've come back to this place, these alleys, this singer. She's as true as they want to make her.
There are so many images! "Merlot's dark throat" is one of my fasvorites - the wine restates the song. Her "night-wear-clad eu-genies" ... now, this one is definitely multi-layered!! The night-wear implies, again, those who are ill. "Eu-genies" could be a survival metaphor, or the genie/genius who arises from within, from "you", the reader. We are all brilliant, in sickness and in health, dreaming or listening or creating. Armchairs turn to wheelchairs and still we erect those noble monuments to music, regret, lust and hope. We uncork the genie.
The closing couplet is a killer. We need little encouragement to bind ourselves, sometimes, to whatever has most attracted us. Do we wish to spend our lives in the thrall of slow and grey harmonics? Or to die for love? Or to travel the haunted highways forever? The speaker veers awfully close to some irrevocable choice. By not making it, he's actually made another, equally final.
This puts me into an alternate universe where anything's not only possible but likely. It could and should be read to a background of Coltrane or Muddy Waters or BB King. It's beyond analysis, really.
What a poem!
Brenda
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2005-11-25 05:53:48
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.22500
TEW
What? You'd lick the ashtrays clean for her?
This has feel. Meal.
But it leaves me feeling too hungry. Bummer.
MAH
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mark Steven Scheffer On Date: 2005-11-24 22:23:29
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.00000
Ho,
HOly shit! Do I do the same thing to people that read my poems? Repent, repent, Sir Scheffer, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. I read nothing but Whitman henceforth . . . Poetic revelations abound this evening. Behold and see.
Nox
This Poem was Critiqued By: Tony P Spicuglia On Date: 2005-11-24 09:35:02
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.95833
Thomas, I am not at the 318 right now, though I wonder if you are out in the desert, or next to the bright lights, no matter- this is an interesting piece.
I like the lakes, dams, and Hoover is a great one, make gods seem greater than they are. It is the nature of the beast. An affinity for, now there is a question that, I think depends on which direction you are traveling, north or south. When reading this piece, and considering genetics and “quasi-medicinal” I am brought to look at the endorsements for the status quo, and you share many, rather than the proprieties of selection, which you share none. A wonderful conflict within a conflict.
There is a well used comparison of visual (esthetic, usually visual), and aural (conversation)- and you add color- “amped & milked” (I like the use of & rather than the spelling, it adds to your abstract/sensual feel of this verse.
Now, I did try hard, unless you were thinking of a specific town/city (a stretch it is not) to work in licentious/wino/dark alleys- yet while traveling your piece, it seemed to connect- maybe I myself qualify as an “arm-chair wino”- or maybe those who can’t get up, or won’t. I do like the thought, knowing the object of good sensual poetry written by a woman, that there is a certain corruptible vein to go with the sainthood, maybe “quasi-Jes (us)”, I don’t know, I just like it.
Even in regrets you add sensuality privately/caresses/sin-singed- Thomas, I do like this piece, maybe that shines a light on my soul, I don’t know, again, I just like it.
You end with “she needed me to stay” – and although I don’t know the background of this piece, I think, were I she, I needed you to write this, more than I needed you to stay.
A very fine piece. I hope I didn’t butcher your meaning because, hell, I just like it!!
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