All Comments on 'Black Dress'

that pulls you along , and the starts and stops you throw in with enjambment ( I hate that word) and the cool word breaks...

man it just smokes.

excellent stuff.

loved: sun coin-slotting.

dead on.

well congrats Deep, easily the best today, mainly beause it itsn't loaded with insipid rhyme, has a few nice figgures o' speechifin "colder than an undertaker's christmas", set locations (busted bowery bums) &bar &etc. & I guess you could be forgiven for "blows you apart like the fourth of July", but it really looks like a long-winded buk line of crap that should have been wrapped up a little sooner. Figgers also the big Buk fan would show up with a nice 100, how fuckin predictable. BTW this makes you vote, so your 50's show up as 50's turn about & all that

That's what I get from it, one to be read aloud, listened to. The voice of the poem--wistful in a working-class male sort of way--would work really well read aloud. I can hear the voice clearly in my head just reading it.

Like 1201 said, some excellent mataphors here like

"with the sun coin-slotting

between skyscrapers reflecting back

over shoulders draped with a menagerie

of curly bullets just waitin

for shooting gallery hearts."

There are a few places where the dialogue slips; I wonder if you want to change that (like "coin-slottin' instead of "coin-slotting" Or in this line "like your ribcage were startin to cry," "was" would sound less formal than "were." "Were" is correct, but someone who uses that dialogue wouldn't make that formal distinction, I think. And the there's "asking and offering," which maybe should be "askin and offerin" to stay in the voice. Just a few thoughts. :)

It's a great read DA, with an appropriately wistful ending.

You just painted the picture all there in black and white ... left me wishing and sighin' oh to be able to write like that.

I'm a little too mesmerized by the gritty flow, the authentic working class cadences, the reminder of the universal curiosity and longing for beauty and beauty's indifference to curiosity and longing, to be able to offer a critical analysis of why I found this poem so appealing. Maybe some other time, in a different pub with a different band, I might be thinking more clearly.

.......make it audio DA! I can read it aloud but your voice would be better. I like the rip-roaring ride you take the reader on. I wish I could write like this. I hit both buttons - vote and faves.

Tess

Five.

with beats of the jungle. TK U MLJ LV NV