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Jailbird (Free verse) by zodiac
While you were Inside I paced the street in front of your cell in my housecoat. I redecorated, took up smoking and quit, drove out by the work crews on 240 saying, that one looks just like you would if you were black. I made acquaintances, other wives and husbands with wives and husbands In: Glen was nice, Darlene a bitch. I walked past the jail up State Street where storefronts, cafes, had folks dressed in cardigans with cappuccinos, doing a dance of Getting-By, of Moving, always moving. And you were Inside, writing your memoir in glaring inconsistencies. Oh, while you were Away, I watered the plants, considered redecorating, maybe moving Upstate. I waited. I plotted. I baked you a birthday cake once with a file in it and detailed instructions for hanging.

Up the ladder: A Panglossian Farmer

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Arithmetic Mean: 9.0
Weighted score: 6.0757656
Overall Rank: 1169
Posted: January 17, 2006 10:08 AM PST; Last modified: January 17, 2006 10:08 AM PST
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MacFrantic

Comments:
[8] ecargo @ 167.219.0.143 | 17-Jan-06/1:45 PM | Reply
You've got such a great "eye" for details. This is good. I bet it'll end up even better. Was the repeat of "redecorated" deliberate?

Jails are seldom on main streets (other than holding cells in police stations)--even county jails are behind gates and wires and fences, so there'd be no storefronts, generally, and no sidewalks to pace. Am I taking this way more literally than you mean it? I sometimes do that; miss the metaphor.
[9] ALChemy @ 24.74.101.159 | 17-Jan-06/2:31 PM | Reply
I keep thinking that she might be one of the many souls floating around in this blue-gray purgatory of poetry and chooses not to let us know she's here.

This is my message to her:
Sure he's exceptionally smart and inciteful but like me he's a man and will eventually shoot himself in the foot. Please Mrs. Z, if you can, make as many of his decisions for him as possible.
[10] MacFrantic @ 172.197.129.206 | 17-Jan-06/11:00 PM | Reply
Oh, if only I could express how great this truly is. *11*
[9] SupremeDreamer @ 130.65.109.104 | 22-Jan-06/3:27 PM | Reply
I just recently got out of jail... and so this piece catches my fancy quite well. Nine.
[8] amanda_dcosta @ 203.145.159.37 | 22-Jan-06/8:52 PM | Reply
Tell me, was she( or is it he) really Inside. or was it that she was away and you waited anxiously to reunite, causing you to go off track, like, doing something different.....redecorating, smoking, etc. I might be going totally off-track myself, but I'm trying to reason it out metaphorically. The piece is good, though.
[n/a] zodiac @ 209.193.18.124 > amanda_dcosta | 22-Jan-06/9:50 PM | Reply
*I* wasn't really Inside. I was just shut in the office writing. My wife was pacing outside the door. I think at some point she decided to move all the furniture in the adjoining room. So I wrote a poem about her wanting me to die. That's how it works in Chez Zodiac: I ignore you sometimes, but I feel your pain while I do.
[8] amanda_dcosta @ 203.145.159.37 > zodiac | 22-Jan-06/9:56 PM | Reply
Chat?
[n/a] zodiac @ 209.193.18.124 > amanda_dcosta | 22-Jan-06/10:04 PM | Reply
Afraid not. Chat's still busted on my computer.
[9] ALChemy @ 24.74.101.159 > zodiac | 22-Jan-06/10:51 PM | Reply
She probably just thought you were looking at dirty pictures on the internet:)
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