Tail-end

Gold cherry
Poem of the week
Pick of the Month

By Parson Thru

Thu, 06 Jul 2017
  • 20148 reads
35 comments
 

Rain hisses on the balcony

and the air smells fresh

 

Thunder rolls around the roofs

 

Eight hours since I finished class

and tomorrow all-but free

 

It’s the tail-end

The last days going into summer

 

I just restrung the flamenco one

and set it down to relax a while

 

Every action is a lesson in life

An hour spent tying nylon ends

 

In the street

a woman peels a parking ticket from her screen

and holds it like a dead baby

Jaw-dropped in disbelief

 

She backs against the wall

Forlorn gaze, first up the street

then down

But there’s no one to upbraid

 

I pour myself a drink, remembering

that water is for thirst

and wine for pleasure

Scrub out a short Dylan tune

on the steel-strung one

 

Two thousand miles east

my love moves me in mysterious ways

Certificate PG
Poem
Parson Thruses Dairy
Travel

Comments

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

another great slice of life - thank you parson!

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks insert. Really glad you like it.

Thank you so much for the pick!!!

Parson Thru

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

Wonderful! You create vivid moments with such simplicity. G & T is good for both...

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Just in the right place at the right time, Philip Sidney.

They pour those in goldfish bowls here.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Philip Sidney on

This wonderfully evocative poem from ABCtales' consummate travel writer is our facebook and twitter pick of the day.  Do share if you like it too.

Submitted by Parson Thru on

That's really lovely of you. Makes the down-up-downs of kicking around feel a lot less turbulent.

Parson Thru

Submitted by PoppyS on

Oh this flows beautifully and effortlessly it's a delight to read.
Sort of reminded me of one of those old TV detective programmes (American) where the cop tells the story Mickey Spillane and all that just needed the smoke filled room and the hat they always wore:)

Riveting piece of writing.

Pops ~xx~

Writing is art in pictures – Go paint poetry!

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thank you Pops.

I wrote it speaking out of the corner of my mouth. I learned that somewhere.

Thanks! :)

Parson Thru

Submitted by PoppyS on

Ha, ha funny - hope your fag did not fall out.

Pops ~xx~

Writing is art in pictures – Go paint poetry!

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Love this, especially the woman with the parking ticket. Made me feel a bit jealous of the person in the poem(you?); I could really do with being 'all but free' and a big thunderstorm would be lovely.

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks Jane.
Trying to think of responses. One of them is "Yes". That's the easy one.

Parson Thru

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

It's nice to be unhurried and relaxed, watch the world go by.

Like Jane said, I do so wish for a thunderstorm to freshen the air. I need reviviing and those first three lines were refreshing to read.

Jenny.

 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Just had another one, Jenny.

Thank you.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Poem of the Week - Congratulations!

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Holy molybdenum!

Parson Thru

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks everyone. I'm always amazed and very grateful when someone says something nice about something that I can't seem to help doing.

Maybe something to share: I've recently written three pieces / poetry (?) that readers and writers on here seem to like. It's strange for me, having busted a gut trying to write things that I wanted to be "good" but not been able to produce it. A couple of weeks back, I took one of my favourite poets for a walk. Not far, just in the local square. I read one of his (can't remember which), and sat under a tree smoking a cigarette and watching things going on around me. Next thing, I pulled out my notebook and wrote it down (or was it my phone?). Anyway. I looked at the aesthetic a bit, but kept it as I'd seen it and posted it, thinking nothing of it. Last week, I wrote what I was seeing in a tiny plaza in town in a similar way. Yesterday, this. I'm a bit scared to do it again in case it's too formulaic. For me, it feels like it's the most natural writing I've ever done. Almost too easy.

The reason I'm saying this is to pass on that lesson I just learned to other people who write. Write in the style that's simple and easy for you. The natural you. However you tell it.

Big crashes of thunder are shaking the floor and I'm right in the window here.

Thank you. I'm absolutely as happy as hell to get poem of the week.

Parson Thru

Submitted by catherine poarch on

Congratulations. I liked this, it has the pace of someone sitting back in a  chair on a veranda. I like how you are writing easily and feeling surprised by that. Probably the way we write best is the one that comes naturally so just go with it and see what comes.

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks Catherine. I'll see what happens. My enemy might be self-consciousness now.

Parson Thru

Submitted by PoppyS on

Well deserved POW, keep coming back to it, it's the easy narrative style - hot knife through butter.

Pops ~xx~

Writing is art in pictures – Go paint poetry!

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thank you Pops.

Parson Thru

Submitted by lenchenelf on

Damned enjoyable. The narrator as  alienated observer, is crafted well. A sense of this pervades. Though at an uneasy peace with a culture and heat to which he does not belong, he yet observes in practice, and masters local pleasantries. Again that distance marked through his craft, seperating out the instruments on which to sharpen his worldplace and harken to his heart, while noting the universality of bureaucratic horrors. 

Like, like and like :)

Lena xx

 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Fantastic comment, lechenelf. I've never heard traffic wardens described so movingly. Working hard to belong more but, you're right, it's bloody difficult. Nothing to do with the host culture or heat, everything to do with the change, late in life and from a woefully ill-prepared starting point. Sadly, for those a generation or more after me and coming from the same socioeconomic position, any progress on that front has just hit the sandpit.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Ray Schaufeld on

Good poem from start to end.smiley

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Elsie, thank you. Hope all good in your neck of the woods.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Ewan on

find by doing this, is that your description in any prose you do write will be tighter, more compact, more effective, it's something I was told would happen if I wrote more poetry. I'm not completely sure it has for me, but it will for you.
Keep that notebook filled with this stuff that just comes, just like that, apparently easily: you can thank reading, observation and just plain daring to write things down.

best
Ewan

 

Author Page at the 'Zon
 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thanks Ewan. Sounds like good advice to me. Im pretty sure it's working for you.

Parson Thru

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

This is our Poem of the Month - Congratulations!

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Can you believe it? I really should try to keep up with events. Thank you so much Helen/Philip. Sorry to come to the party so late. I'm over the moon, as they say. Thank you.

Very, very grateful. Sorry if that sounds a bit Trumpish. x

Parson Thru

Submitted by celticman on

well done mate. great poem and wiinner of poem of the month, deservedly so. 

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

Thank you celt!

Parson Thru

Pages