Inspired by Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and
Ms. Haiku
Washington DC Posts: 7,265
Walker Evan's "Luncheon Window, New York" 1929
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/walkerevans/art/1971.646.35.R.jpg
A car camouflaged in contemporary colors
was pulled from the curb by a swatch
of superstitious workers
deployed as if from an organized handbook.
Leaving scars on the dashboard they evict the driver
from his means of escape. He runs through red lights
down a flight of steps. His car’s towed away
like a broken ship ready to sink to keep a secret.
Lunchtime wanderers can only view
this man’s life within a diner window frame.
Even less concerned with the multiple demise
the red light flashes for a moment.
Next moment.
Next moment.
Next moment.
Across the street at a public park
a jump rope slackens.
Two girls dressed in proper pink
witness this scene not revealed within the alphabet.
The parking space refills with only one dink,
and lunchtime wanderers who never step on sidewalk cracks
look beyond and to the left of descending steps.
They consider their hunger coin denominated.
A construction worker looks up. He looks straight.
He drops his hammer.
A man swallows the scene without touching his tongue for taste,
and inhales vinegar soaked french fries.
He gulps down the usual drink
ordered with a the special for an extra 50 cents.
Another man holds his sandwich like breath.
He will live as a lunchtime wanderer without means of escape.
He will teach his son to throw baseballs at the sky.
He will share stories with his granddaughter about this day’s noise.
http://www.metmuseum.org/special/walkerevans/art/1971.646.35.R.jpg
A car camouflaged in contemporary colors
was pulled from the curb by a swatch
of superstitious workers
deployed as if from an organized handbook.
Leaving scars on the dashboard they evict the driver
from his means of escape. He runs through red lights
down a flight of steps. His car’s towed away
like a broken ship ready to sink to keep a secret.
Lunchtime wanderers can only view
this man’s life within a diner window frame.
Even less concerned with the multiple demise
the red light flashes for a moment.
Next moment.
Next moment.
Next moment.
Across the street at a public park
a jump rope slackens.
Two girls dressed in proper pink
witness this scene not revealed within the alphabet.
The parking space refills with only one dink,
and lunchtime wanderers who never step on sidewalk cracks
look beyond and to the left of descending steps.
They consider their hunger coin denominated.
A construction worker looks up. He looks straight.
He drops his hammer.
A man swallows the scene without touching his tongue for taste,
and inhales vinegar soaked french fries.
He gulps down the usual drink
ordered with a the special for an extra 50 cents.
Another man holds his sandwich like breath.
He will live as a lunchtime wanderer without means of escape.
He will teach his son to throw baseballs at the sky.
He will share stories with his granddaughter about this day’s noise.
There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
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Comments
this man’s life within a diner window frame.
Even less concerned with the multiple demise
the red light flashes for a moment.
Next moment.
Next moment.
Next moment." - I found this part, very Radioheadish!
I like that you added a link to "Luncheon Window" as after reading your poem, I looked at the pic and could totally see your words echoing in thier thoguhts.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
ten charecters for you.
http://www.wishlistfoundation.org
Oh my, they dropped the leash.
Morgan Freeman/Clint Eastwood 08' for President!
"Make our day"
The Street Spirits......
The machine........
Fade out......
Immersed soul......
you wanna touch the sky
ive got to go now
baseball time
and remember no trades and only one free agent the opening year
" His car’s towed away
like a broken ship ready to sink to keep a secret."
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
After many years of waking up
she found herself without the question, "Why?"
A favorite hidden toy
it was hopelessly lost.
She would look for it in books,
if she had any left to read.
She looked for it in the cupboards
behind canned goods and steel pots,
but she found only incomplete statements.
Covered from head to toe in accurately sewn facts
she walked down the center of town
in the middle of the night.
The moonlight reflected in shop windows
she saw as a series of moments
on time like the town square clock.
She saw a mother and a daughter
holding hands as they crossed the street.
The mother stoped abruptly, looked up
and exclaimed, "Look at all the stars!"
As the two pointed and counted
the woman without "Why?"
felt a pain in her hands stronger than blood.
Her chin almost touched her chest and she knew
at last no one can haggle
over the definition of "the."
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
I suppose I think firstly that the picture could represent the search, the search for "why?"... a 'which way sign' to the answer of the question. When you are lost you look for a sign. For some people though, signs have no apparent meaning, and it's hard if you don't feel as though you know where you are going, you can stand and look at the sign but it means nothing to you. I think I remember the video to the song, certainly a radiohead song and to my mind it fits with this song. A man walking along the street falls to the ground and lies there paralysed, people become concerned and start asking him if he is ok, he is desperate, people want to know why, he has the answer but we don't find out what it is.... it fades out.
'the woman without "why?"' is feeling the same pain.? The thing is that the song ends with an answer, to immerse your soul in love. Is that the message of the song, to realise that you're never really alone if you're immersed??
Some of your descriptions are great biblio, the 'favourite toy', 'hopelessly lost', and the 'moonlight reflected in shop windows', seen as ' a series of moments' are my two favs......
Before resurrection there is death,
and death is not mild-mannered.
Stand in a town square, and watch
how the sun moves edges of simple objects
as washes of darkness on sidewalks.
I stood looking at the town square cross for many hours.
I wanted to resurrect without dying first.
I saw the splinters of this wooden object
reflected in windows, and behind one window
I saw a mirror.
I saw the cross had multiplied,
and I knew torture became common and expected.
I kept my questions written, hidden, in a notebook.
I stood neither resurrected nor dead,
and threw all my change at the top of the cross,
which fell short in quantity, distance, and patience.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
Firstly, I was wondering do you have terraces (as in a terraced housing) in the states? Rows of houses, typically Victorian, (turn of the century when they really exploded), housing for the poorer workers in industry. They are all over the place in UK city suburbs. Identical houses joined in rows and terraced up and down hills. Pitched roofs, two storey, red brick, party wall chimneys, typically. So this is what is doing the 'bearing down' in the song. I ask because the reflected, mirrored and multiplied town square cross evokes the same sentiment. A series, repetition, multiplicity. I quite like repetition.
Then you've got repetition in the poem, I saw, I saw, I stood, I stood,.... fade in, fade out, repetition, death, fade out, birth, fade in. Street 'spirit', fading out, I never really thought of the song just being about our death before but maybe it is. I read spirit first as in atmosphere but is it ghost?
Then I looked back at your previous poem, the lost '"Why?"', the question, and here 'the questions', 'the strain I am under' are recorded and written in a notebook, but hidden. And if you are neither resurrected nor dead then you must be alive, but is the subject 'alive' he/she is looking for ressurection before death, so I take it he/she is alive but unfulfilled?? or lost again...? maybe. So as the cross becomes multiplied and the torture becomes common and expected... it's not going to end, it's a cycle. And throwing change at the cross.... hmmm.
I like the sense of time again, like the framed scenes in the shopfront, this time the sun and the moving shadows recording how time passes by. See, lots of thoughts. I've got a larger drawing of the cross, I'll post it and the poem has reminded me of a little sketch of a framed sequence of openings which I think relates well.
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird