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Penny Loafer Blues (Prose Poem) by ALChemy For a moment I thought I had it. Mi senorita bonito, el amor de mi vida,
readymade with gleaming sons, wedding bound. One day a one man carnival
and then; a zookeeper, backwasher, permanent Santa Claus. âFather?â â
Yes son, what do you need?â âShoes. Iâve spent all the money and
forget to buy shoes.â âAre you sure you want mine, their so (
treadless, heels unstitched, leather kinked and wrinkled but polished,
always polished. Memories of little feet sliding in them, hooking tongue
as I lifted into step, my flop flop march across the hardwood floor.)
old and usedâ And there I was once more, my feet now grown and now I
was prepared. Pressed into size 10 shoes and I could feel the discomfort
in my size 11 souls.
You could have said, âSon run, run to the whores, run to your hand,
run away from those sins of another man. Run to your dream wife whoâs
face as light glows through closed lids like stained glass, illuminating
blood capillaries the color of fresh lava and if you concentrate appears
into your frontal lobe as vapor apparition. She is your soul mate, your
starlet projected against a screen of inner skull.â You could have
told me father, not to wear them.
Nearly two years since she left me now father.
I have no need for your prophet shoes.
But theyâve stretched since then and are now, I admit, quite
comfortable.
Up the ladder:
A Valley Girl's Rendition of "Fire and Ice."
Down the ladder:
brave new world still a bit timid
Votes: (green: user, blue: anonymous)
Arithmetic Mean: 6.5
Posted: January 29, 2006 10:05 AM PST; Last modified: January 29, 2006 10:05 AM PSTWeighted score: 5.4034123 Overall Rank: 3154 The following users have marked this poem on their favorites list:
Comments:
Pretty cool--the imagery is well done overall. I was confused about "father" though--until the end I though one of her "gleaming sons" was talking to you (in the role of surrogate).
Nits: that first semi should be a colon ("One day a one man carnival and then:"). "Who's" should be "whose" (and "whose face as light glows" seems like a word is missing). What I really liked: "gleaming sons"; "flipflop march"; the stream-of-consciousness description/memory of the father's shoes; "You could have said, âSon run, run to the whores, run to your hand, run away from those sins of another man"; the "vapor apparition." What didn't work as well for me (for whatever that's worth): "permanent Santa Clause" (just seems like there must be a better way to say this); "size 11 souls" (think this is a typo--soles--but if not, it's a little too precious). This line: "dream wife whoâs face . . . a screen of inner skullâ has too many unconnected images--I like the comparison of blood running like lava, but it's not connected to anything else in the poem, and the rush of images--stained glass, lava, starlet on a screen--aren't connected to each other and don't connect to anything else, so it just seems like you were searching for the right analogy but didn't find it (maybe that's deliberate). "Soul mate" is a cliche, and "screen of inner skull" and "frontal lobe" just seems too--I don't know--hard, maybe, or sterile or something. Not sure I get "prophet" shoes. I like the fact that he blames the shoes, somehow, but I don't know if the buildup gets us there. I like the "stretch" intimation of growing, though. Nits and the rest aside, I DO like this a lot. Very imaginative w/good lines and a good story with a tight focus. Hee--I just read Ranger's comment, and isn't it funny how what doesn't work for one person completely works for another? Anyway--take this for what it's worth: one person's opinion. ;-D
Christ--my comment's longer than your poem!
That's always a good thing. Means you really thought about it. Yeah I didn't do nearly enough proofreading before I posted it.
Thanks E. Good points. I typed it on Word and basically only used its spell check so my laziness and bad spelling bit me in the ass. Your right, I probably could have come up with something better than the Santa line. The dream wife lines? Well, my father tends to think ahead of himself sometimes and it causes his sentences to be only obscurely connected. I couldn't resist mirroring this in the poem a little. This is what I meant:
"Run to your dream wife(the wife I imagined I'd have) whoâs face as light glows through closed lids like stained glass, illuminating blood capillaries the color of fresh lava(while staring into the slightly translucent inside of my eyelids) and if you concentrate appears into your frontal lobe as vapor apparition.(Her face appears like a ghostly illusion projected by my mind while my eyes are closed). So it's connected but there's a lot of descriptive stuff stuffed between the connections. I do the same thing when I interupt my father's line âAre you sure you want mine, their so - old and used" with a memory of my childhood. Soul mate was just a play on Soles (which I misspelled the first time). So I screwed that one up for sure. "Prophet shoes" is because of the omen at the beginning where the shoes don't quite fit. You've got an eye like an editor E. Thankya
Naw...not a big fan of this one. I didn't really 'get it'. and all that stuff in the middle about running to your dream wife...language didn't fit the piece.
A man tries to take the path of life his father took. He dicovers that that's not quite the path for him. So he sets off to make his own path but admits he's gotten used to his father's.
What language would fit the piece? I used two.
"Run to your dream wife whoâs face
as light glows through closed lids like stained glass, illuminating blood capillaries the color of fresh lava and if you concentrate appears into your frontal lobe as vapor apparition. She is your soul mate, your starlet projected against a screen of inner skull.â That type of wording (the language I refered to)is not in sync with the rest of it. The rest has a homey, very-real, real-life grit to it.
I see. I was trying to describe the images that form while you just lie there eyes closed staring into the inside of your eyelids, how light causes a faint orange-red glow and how like with clouds you start to make images out of them. In this case the face of my future dream wife. Good point though. I've certainly got some editing to do.
But surely that's the idea of the dream wife; she is not just a homey real-life icon, she is something different, something new. Just as spending a moment looking through shut eyelids can bring up images of the less-than-ordinary and the beautiful (fresh lava, stained glass etc.) The contrast of language is a mirror for this, and in the end it's the real-life language that wins.
You should be an agent or an art dealer. You explain things better than I can. I think if you can make it work, changing the language in a poem instantly increases the attention of the reader. Thanks Ranger.
dingdingding! Yeah, I missed that--guess I'm a bit of an Imagist in wanting my images connected, focused, but you're right--here, the flash of unconnected images against closed lids is a sort of falling-asleep sequence, freeflowing and disordered, like dreams. Cool.
Man you guys are getting darn good at this. I wasn't expecting anyone to pick up on the more subtle parts of the poem. Wow.
Creative idea(very creative). I think you should trim it a little for greater impact. But don't fiddle with it too much, it might lose its charm.
Isn't it supposed to be size 11 soles? (U wrote 'souls') Is it to imply anything? Nice poem..Good story. Prose form good.... though I would have liked it in shorter lines. Seems to take away some of the emphasis. But the story.... I have to give it to you! Cheers!
Yep, "Soles". I didn't give it a good enough proofread before I posted. Thanks Amanda. I'll try to get a revised version up this weekend.
Ah, now I thought 'souls' was intentional, it works with the 'prophet shoes' and how the (size 10) prophesy didn't fit, or maybe wasn't fair on, your (size 11) soul - in the same way the shoes didn't fit your feet. Perhaps I read into it a little too much. Still love it though!
I did mean the double meaning but I think it might have gotten through even if I had used the correct spelling.
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I just put this together today so it's probably a little raw.
Zodiac's "After Fighting" inspired it as far as metaphor goes. I wanted to use an old cliche and make it sound raw and new again.
I've had alot of revelations about my dad and my goals in the last few years and this was part of it.
Thanks Ranger.
Thanks Ranger. By the way it's good to see you posting again.
Welcome back.