The rain was unexpected
vertical and easy
to hide from
even beneath shallow awnings
but the yellow yawning light
from a stray bar
called me to shelter
from the greater storm
settling on the welcome cool
of a solitary bar stool
I decided to forget
that I no longer smoke cigarettes
I bummed one off the guy beside me
and inhaled my past
like a dream I'd forgotten
I own.
In a list
Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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All too real
Very beautifully written and nice rhyme scheme. I can relate completely not only with the drinking and smoking but also with bringing back in the past with one quick choice. It's so easy to do and you word it so well.
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Picture Perfect
Loved it. How many times have I "inhaled my past" ? And " breathed it out again"? The picture is PERFECT. Thank you for sharing. Bluebird. Rewarded 4
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test
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Smoking is a bad habit.
Thanks Bluebird. I get mixed reactions to my propensity for placing images beside my poems and I suppose it IS cheating a little, but I get so much enjoyment out of choosing them - and this is one I particularly liked. Hope it was only cigarettes you were inhaling! Thanks again for the comment. >W<
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nice
I'm not sure if it was you who wrote another poem similiar to this but with the same picture. Could have been somebody else but that would be very ironic. I really enjoyed the poem alot, I thought you said everything you needed to say in the perfect amount of words, not a space wasted. Good Job. A very strong, concise poem that has a familiarity to somebody that everybody knows or actually is/are themselves. Thank you for sharing with us and I hope to hear from ya soon. LoL nm now I see why I liked the poem so much and recognized the picture, it's all b/c I've read this one before. Sorry about that mate, but it was still like reading the poem for the first time, it was just that damn picture that stuck in my head. That could be taken as either a compliment or a jab at ya. And trust me it was definately a compliment!!
TTYL
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This poem really clicks to me. It reminds me of wondering around alone and thinking of all the ways you could forget the thing you are being brought down by and even though you try to resist you still end up on that bar stool or in that old habit of smoking a cigarette and for the time being it is so comforting you don't know why you bothered to try and avoid it.
. Rewarded 6
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I love this!! I love how the end brings it together. Just great, really.
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For me, this is one of your best small lyrics, John. The first thing to my mind is the famous line of Faulkner: "The past isn't dead and buried - it isn't even past." The poem's "yellow dawning light" (loved that) is like a gentle, reluctant flare-up into a man's past as he takes his rest from it and has a drink. And the "bummed" cig, a conscious decision, images up the smoke of a ghost-self, still part of the man's heart, and, acceptingly, owned by him - it's HIS self he's taking in.
As a smoker still (so lock me up) and an occasional drinker, this poem reaches inside me very personally; it eases up, against all the fashionable wisdom of the day, that feeling of ultimate and rich aloneness at the center of a life's honestly rendered "greater storm" that only he knows.
Not a word or image or feeling out of place in this one, morning's minion. Its apparent light touch goes deep, like inhaling one's own private soul.
Later...
Lad. Rewarded 8
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I like this too
Lad, every now and then you remind me just why I love you (but not that way - sexy as you may be!) Every now and then I write something that almost completely takes ME by surprise and this was one of them. It was part of that little string of poems I wrote getting drunk in France last month and it just kind of hung around and grew on me. And the cigarette/past angle was what really pleased me the most. All the form, meter rhyme - whatever - in the world doesn't equate to one good poetic thought, and for me - this was a good one. Your reflections on it are like balm to my little ego ( now getting bigger!) So no modesty from me here - just thanks. >W<
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My favorite part of the poem is "...inhaled my past
like a dream I'd forgotten"
Good job I like it.
. Rewarded 4
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Me too!
Thanks Calamity. I liked that bit too! Will try and look in you real soon. >W<
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Hey WH
I found this poem to be very enjoyable. Very rich with true life textures. Sounds like the person in the poem is trying to hide something that they're ashamed of or either relapsing into a life they had once called home, then found it was hell and climbed out, but only to find that they're slowly falling back in unless they dig at it every day. Seems he has forgotten that he needs to keep on digging. A very good write indeed. Congrats mate.
. Rewarded 8
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This is a great poem. Effortless. I am pleased to have read it.
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hey john
this poem just blew me away a real glimpse into someone perhaps denying a history there not proud of and then deciding that no, they are they're past.
if you picked up smoking again, which is a dirty, filthy habit but got this poem out of it i think its worth it.
dave
ps-i liked that there was nothing arbitrary here, just direct and to the point.. Rewarded 6
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