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poetryrepairshop 06.01:009
With thanks to Jim Simmerman's, "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" -MARIE CARTIER Copyright 2006, all rights revert to the poet. |
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poetryrepairshop 06.01:009TERRY WOLVERTON Emergency PonchoMy neighbor leaves her TV on all night. Jingles and laugh track, murmured dialogue seep through my open window as I lie sleepless at three a.m., mingle with songs of night birds, low hum of nearby freeway, long strip of whispered sound. I am naked on green sheets. My neighbor Gloria is eighty-four this year; she too lives alone. Still-brown hair piles in a loose chignon. Each afternoon she backs her Bonneville down the drive, aims perilously at the street, steers ten blocks to the Tam O'Shanter, where she drinks Manhattans until evening, then returns. Sometimes I find her car door slung wide, forgotten, tolling its tiny chime, headlights beaming at the blank-faced garage. In winter she brings me lemons from her tree. But it's July now, a strange July bringing rain that floods deserts, hailstorms in hundred degree heat. The 'Emergency Poncho' you bought me stays folded in neat ziploc case, no bigger than my palm. Clear plastic tent, hooded but revealing, no real insurance against sudden deluge. Part of your care package for my trip to Italy, along with disposable toothbrush, bristles already minty with paste; a can of chipotle; a sheer lace camisole the color of bruised cherries. You laughed hardest about the poncho. 'In case it rains,' you grinned, then kissed me breathless. The sun was glorious in Italy. I ran up a five hundred dollar phone bill to bring you the taste of cherries in Rome, papery skin of red poppies, warmth of the Mediterranean, rich scent of flower petals strewn on medieval streets. I calculated time zones, set my alarm to call before you slept, always wore that lace camisole to talk to you. Had someone asked then, I'd have sworn you were shelter; because of you I'd stopped sleeping with a knife under my pillow, blade honed to ward off dreams. But that was another season. Now July steals my breath. Now the theme from 'Mayberry RFD' invades my night, wraps its arms around me like a plastic shroud. Scent of rain lingers in air. Copyright 2006, all rights reserved by the TERRY WOLVERTON |
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ABOUT 'The Neighborhood' Its strenght comes from the use of one poetic device to express multiple layers of meaning. 'LIKE an old slut' is a simile that is extended thru-out the poem. As an extended metaphor, a simile can be a comparsion for a whole stanxa. When the comparision is drawn through the entire poem, we call it a CONCEIT. It is the poet's 'conceit' that A is like B though we certainly know that B is not A, and it cannot be. TERRY WOLVERTON
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poetryrepairshop 06.01:009
Copyright 2006, all rights reserved by TIN SIGNS whose opinions may differ from those of the PoetryRepairShop owner, staff, and writers |
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