Gideon
It was raining and it was Wednesday, praying,
Where the man stood on the corner coldly
Handing out green New Testaments
They were gold and it wasn't raining
But it was cold where the man stood
Loving in a torn friar's robe
His face was torn, gaunt and gilded
Where the two streets swished with cars,
Cold cars with torn people
Staring grimly into the grim air, praying,
Eyes that sped through pages of green New Testaments
Stacked high along the corner.
It was Wednesday, gaunt and gilded
Where the weathered man stood in the rain
The day was sobbing on the green corner.
-nathan shank-
10/15/08
Thoughts? good, bad?
How is the ending? Is the poem too short?
Does it need more punctuation?
Does "swished" work?
Anything corny?
Title?
1 comment:
I like this a lot.
- Great opening, and the repetition of that construction works well. (It reminds me of Stevens' "It was evening all afternoon / It was snowing and it was about to snow.")
- I like the picking up adjectives that you used or implied in previous contexts and using them for something different. (Torn, cold, gilded, green.)
- The sound has a good feel. I can analyze that in more depth sometime if you like.
- I like the title, but if you're going for more than Gideons' Bibles, I missed it.
- Do you know what you're doing with the (Stevensesque) contradiction from the first stanza to the second?
- I'm not sure about the friar's robe. This seems to introduce a distracting anachronism. (And your Gideon Bible guy wouldn't literally be a friar, says my online research, because it's a protestant organization.)
- Hmm, swished. Good concept (to use an unusual sensory word here), but I don't think it's quite the right word. Too light and dry maybe? Think about the cars in the rain making sheets of water come up from the curbs, and see what you get.
- "Cold cars with torn people" is in danger of sentimentality, but I think you pull up in time with the repetition of praying and then the speeding eyes.
- I don't think "weathered man" works. I appreciate that you've done some groundwork (with the actual weather) to make that more significant than it would normally be, but I still think you can do better.
- But, I really love the closing stanza. It comes full circle and still manages to be surprising. And you've earned "the day was sobbing" by the time you get there.
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