- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Black Dress
Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click herethis is a story
about a black dress
fulla girl;
standin in front of a mirror
on friday, with the sun coin-slotting
between skyscrapers reflecting back
over shoulders draped with a menagerie
of curly bullets just waitin
for shooting gallery hearts.
it's a
black dress fulla girl
a mess a' curls
a purse
& some pearls -
all driftin toppa heels
that're clickin metronome, she's
leavin
the house
with frantic
jazz feet
dancin
the stairs
down
to the street
makin a
runway
outta
cracked
con-
crete,
callin a cab and crawlin in, say,
"honey, where you goin and honey,
where you been,
all my life?"
she'll say,
"take me someplace the drinks're colder
than an undertaker's christmas
and all the guys, they got knives in their eyes
cause tonight, ain't nobody cuttin me off,
but i want 'em all to try."
the sun's last shadows're getting lost
in the rising night, and the streetlights
they file by the windows,
marking time in puddles of bright
to the tune of, "aint it a shame
that girl's not mine."
then she's passing the doorman with a kiss
on the cheek and as she breezes (Ssssssss.)
honey by, the whole bar comes alive,
like the back-beat'd been stuck
waitin on the street
and just made it in on the heels
of that black dress fulla girl.
you follow her in,
cause you wanna know
what it looks like,
when she dances,
and there she is,
turning hearts after heads;
she's flyin with doves strapped
to her ankles and the sparrows
that're shakin their wings
at the ends of her wrists
they're drawin you closer to this stare
that's drillin slugs, droppin a lug
like you, at the feet of her legs laid bare -
& those pearls are sliding
against her collarbones faster
than the sweat that's beading on your chest
like your ribcage were startin to cry
for the bird she just set free,
& you're thinking,
"well I got
Long Piano Hands And The Light Fingertips
hell, i gotta touch that'd shiver frost
off the moon's hips," but she ain't having
none of it, cause the prey,
well,
it don't pick the tiger.
yeah, she shuts you down,
blows you apart like the fourth of July
and she never leaves no flowers
on the graves of the fallen, naw,
she just lets 'em lie, stringin a trail
of wounded breadcrumbs and busted
bowery bums, all the way to the door.
the survivors, they gather on barstools,
& order another round and you're
floor bound and damned if she's not
what you waited for, but she wasn't asking
or offering,
cause black dresses,
fulla girls like that -
they only show up
to say
goodnight.
- COMMENTS
GuiltyPleasureover 16 years ago.......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
lorencinoover 16 years agoI'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.
UnderYourSpellover 16 years agoYou just painted the picture all there in black and white ... left me wishing and sighin' oh to be able to write like that.
Angelineover 16 years agoThat'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.
twelveooneover 16 years agowell 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
Tathagataover 16 years agothat 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.
