Saint Elmo's Fire

Cherry

By Silver Spun Sand

Sun, 01 May 2016
  • 3566 reads
8 comments
 
‘Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin’...
Cohen sings to a slender, slanting rain; 
 
roofs and power-lines shine; not a night
for going any place – worst still, away.   
 
Foot, hard down on the gas, 
DJ switches to Chris Rea; gravel voice 
to the susurrus of tyres on asphalt...
 
Red pelt of a fox, curled by a freeway;
ain’t no time for sweet valediction
 
till the engine’s slowed and wheels 
stop spinning; roadmaps folded
into just-so, little squares...
 
And in a second-rate motel, every
room is taken, and a broken glass,
lipstick traced – trashed 
 
a forgotten cigarette smoulders on, 
obstinately, yet in an ashtray.
 
A guitar covets the coda of a love-song, 
that floats on and on; eloquent as an unmade bed – 
 
and a girl on a corner in a red trench-coat
bums a light...the air, humid – heavy
with an abundance of thunder. 
 
‘Dance me to the end of love’...she says.
Certificate 15
Poem
Silver Spun Sand Poems
Romance
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

eloquent as an unmade bed, that's poetry unsaid. 

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Cheers, celticsmiley

 

Submitted by jeand on

Hi Tina

This is so detailed and picturesque. You can feel and see and hear it as you read it.

Jean

Jean Day

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Thanks, Jean...pleased you thought so.

Tina

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Tina, I just read this again, and like before found the beginning description of journeying in the dark, wet night evocative, but felt oppressed by the incipient, pending thunder at the end, but I suppose that was your intention. I felt like saying, 'Go, find a pleasanter place, whatever the weather outside!'

Were you dissatisfied with your Piper-Alpha story? Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Rhiannon, I always admire  your ability to glean the essence of a poem, or a piece of prose, so succinctly, and not only that, to be able to express your thoughts thus.  A rare talentsmiley  And as to your 'felt like saying',  indeed you said it more than eloquently.

Piper Alpha...another story, alas. 

So very many thanks.

Tina

 

Submitted by forest_for_ever on

'slender slanting rain...' magic smiley

 

Submitted by Wes on

'Second rate motel', been there done that, as many of us have, at one time or another...Keith