Prose Poem № 137825
Penny Loafer Blues
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 âYes 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.
21 comments
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.
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
"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
What language would fit the piece? I used two.
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.
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