Suburban Blues

[twoleftfeet]

When I woke up this morning
the bag had packed
herself off
back to Brighton.
It felt strange not to have a hen
pecking at my shoulder,
parroting my many faults ,
over and over,
like a stuck record,
for fear I should forget them.

By midday I'd begun
to water down the silence with whiskey.
Thinking of her,
I picked up my old guitar,
by the neck,
and went on the slide,
in and out of twelve bars,
but stopping at the seventh,
my longing for her undiminished
by five fingers.

I sought a lyric in my fretting,
but words could never pardon
the heavy sentence we'd vowed
on one another.
So I hammered away in silence,
'til my head was spinning
at thirty three and a third rpm,
drying my eyes,
flattening my tongue,
treble-cleft, inside my cheek.

[barrie]

'When I woke up this morning
the bag had packed
herself off
back to Brighton.' - Have you been in spirit contact with Les Dawson? What an opener!

'It felt strange not to have a hen
pecking at my shoulder,
parroting my many faults,' - a real hybrid!

The blues and pubs image is the highlight for me, I take my skull cap off to you for this one sir -

'I picked up my old guitar,
by the neck,
and went on the slide,
in and out of twelve bars,'

And, as usual, the tongue-in-cheek ending.

My applause.

Barrie

[Bombadil]

Funny punny stuff as always. You make me laugh.

Cheers,

Keith

[figure eight]

This is genius.

I’d have to echo the thoughts of Barrie. I love all of the same lines.

I’d also like to add that the double meaning of the line “I sought a lyric in my fretting” is very clever.

I really great read.

I can’t find anything that I think should be changed so sorry for the lack of constructive criticism.

Adam

[juliadebeauvoir]

I liked the progression--the aversion, then the missing, then the deep longing of what you had that you think you didn't want. Make sense?
My favorite line:

By midday I'd begun
to water down the silence with whiskey.
Thinking of her,
I picked up my old guitar,
by the neck,

It's the love-hate relationship so clearly defined. The last lines hold more mystery than the rest of the poem. I wondered if the playing of the guitar was so cathartic that it dried your tears, flattened you tongue from speaking ill of the relationship and then put that same tongue in cheek as if it were a farce the whole time. Not sure I am on the right track but enjoyed it any way.

Cheers,
Julia

[twoleftfeet]

Thanks Barrie, Keith, Adam and Julia.

I take it you are all guitar players?

I tried to make as many references as I could to guitar playing that could also be taken as references to drinking. In my experience, when you mix the two, the guitar playing is the first casualty.

The flippant ending is a cop out, and "drying eyes" and "flattening"
come from imagining my head, after a few drinks, as the inside of a spin-dryer!

Cheers
Geoff

[figure eight]

There was something else I meant to ask. The line "my longing for her undiminished by five fingers" is that an intentional reference to m@sterb@tion? Sorry if it's not, that's just how it read to me despite the guitar references thoughout the stanza.

[twoleftfeet]

No! I never thought of that, honest
I intended the puns to be a diminished chord and drinking five fingers of
whiskey from the bottle.

[barrie]

I've been digging: I managed to unearth some mummified remains which are still comprehensible to the modern reader.

[juliadebeauvoir]

I log on and suddenly it is April 2006
I'm thinking I have a serious case of deja vu or there was something very wrong with my user control panel...
But I like what you dug up.
Will come back to this one tomorrow as I am off to bed.

Cheers,
Kim

[Travis]

This is really good. Not only is it a well written piece of work overall, but it's just riddled with cleverness in between.

Seeing as how this is an older offering, you're probably not interested in considering changes. But for what it's worth I'd fuck around with the punctuation to make it flow a little smoother.

When I woke up this morning
the bag had packed
herself off
back to Brighton.
It felt strange not to have a hen
pecking at my shoulder,
parroting my many faults, (omit comma)
over and over, (omit comma)
like a stuck record,
for fear I should forget them.

By midday I'd begun
to water down the silence with whiskey.
Thinking of her, (omit comma)
I picked up my old guitar, (omit comma)
by the neck, (omit comma)
and went on the slide, (insert period)
In and out of twelve bars,
but stopping at the seventh,
my longing for her (insert "was") undiminished
by five fingers.

I sought a lyric in my fretting,
but words could never pardon
the heavy sentence we'd vowed
on one another.
So I hammered away in silence, (omit comma)
'til my head was spinning
at thirty three and a third rpm,
drying my eyes,
flattening my tongue,
treble-cleft, inside my cheek.

Nothing major. Take it or leave it.

Enjoyed this a lot,

Travis