- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Shopping
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- On reading Ezra Pound's "The Garden" -
- and then reflecting on the comments -
Aimless as windblown paper
Chanced against the parking lot's chainlink fence,
She idles down the Wal-Mart's aisles
And pauses a time amid the cosmetics.
Has what was written in her faded
Or was it ever even published?
Sure now she's weathered clean
Of narrative and meaning.
She's not so old as the seniors, out for a lark,
Nor so young as the stressed-out mothers
With their screaming spawn,
Once she was one of them, in her mother's cart,
Will they be her in turn,
Though it break each mother's heart?
Not for her, the rush of purpose that is shopping,
She's the ebb of the American Dream,
Drained of all hope and planning.
In the stores of old there'd be a clerk
To show her mascara and lipstick,
To get her gently but firmly back on track,
Does she feel the loss of help and concern?
Is she perhaps longing for some human contact?
I hope she doesn't notice me
As I watch her like a hawk,
I'm sure she's shoplifting
And sure I'll see her caught.
- COMMENTS
UnderYourSpellabout 16 years agoIn a few short lines you have made me care about this woman and to wonder what is her story and what happens to her
Angelineabout 16 years agoIt sort of reminds me of a Browning dramatic monologue, with both the subject and the narrator revealed by the end. The are some wonderful lines like "weathered clean of both narrative and meaning' that are just striking. The only word that seemed off to me is "subhuman." It comes across very harshly in a poem whose tone is as tenuous as its subject. Also, you might play with some of the line breaks to get more impact from some of that marvelous phrasing.
