Now the Flies

[DanBierce]

Flies buzz kelp tossed aground
as brown eels monkey pool to pool
beneath the foam where broken creatures
churn and grind to mundane sand.

The cafe's dated tablecloth,
checkered white and blue,
is soiled from years of deep-fried fare
and the handfull of shells
you took to your dryland guy
with his basket of loot, sunny car,
and common sense.

I size up the prevalent wind,
and from where I sit, your glass,
my glass, the spent bottle
and sourdough crumbs, still
as life becomes without you
say it's time to go.

The waitress brings the check. I pay,
deal out the tip as the surf below
growls and thunder-gray gulls
lift away like smoke.

[Delta40]

This is wonderful. I was transported there and back again!

[paperleaves]

Your poem sent me traveling through surreal jungles, I love it, I can only wonder what you were thinking/feeling when you wrote it...

thank you for sharing.
sincerely
paper

[DanBierce]

Thanks for the reads and comments. As I wrote this I was flashing back to one of the old cafes on the northern California coast I used to frequent. Added some drama. Got a poem out of it. I have been working on this one off-and-on for well over a year. It still needs work. I want the stanzas to meld into each other more smoothly than they do now.

[paperleaves]

p.s.
love theBukowski quote.

[DanBierce]

Thanks. You have a nice Buk quote yourself. :)

[~Sophia~]

Hi Dan. I agree with the others. I particularly love the middle two stanzas! Great read!


The cafe's dated tablecloth,
checkered white and blue,
is soiled from years of deep-fried fare
and the handfull of shells
you took to your dryland guy
with his basket of loot, sunny car,
and common sense.

I size up the prevalent wind,
and from where I sit, your glass,
my glass, the spent bottle
and sourdough crumbs, still
as life becomes without you
say it's time to go.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's kind of as if you were worried you might not have the time to write another poem so you squeezed enough stuff into this for three or so more. There's a great mastery in this, the emotions and imagery challenging your technical virtuosity - to a draw!

Brilliant!

[MorpheusSandman]

I really love this. Its surreal and at the same time there's a definite method to it; a definite something connecting it all together aesthetically, emotionally, thematically, etc. It's definitely enigmatic, but my intuition is definitely pointing to something lurking beneath the surface. Very nice.

[qimissung]

I really like it-the last stanza is what makes it, I think.

[DanBierce]

Thanks for the reads and nice comments, y'all. Glad the poem works well for you.

[Virgil]

I think it got better as it went along. I can't make heads or tails out of that first stanza. I think you're just trying too hard there. Once you moderated the intensity it kind of got really interesting. I agree with Sophia theses are the best stanzas:

The cafe's dated tablecloth,
checkered white and blue,
is soiled from years of deep-fried fare
and the handfull of shells
you took to your dryland guy
with his basket of loot, sunny car,
and common sense.

I size up the prevalent wind,
and from where I sit, your glass,
my glass, the spent bottle
and sourdough crumbs, still
as life becomes without you
say it's time to go.
Actually those two stanzas are excellent. :)

[AuntShecky]

When I came to the word "kelp" I knew that your speaker wasn't in Idaho anymore. I also liked the choice of "monkey" as a verb. When coupled with "eels" the image is bizarre but startling and new.

My only objections: I would try to avoid the second person "you" in verse, unless the speaker is directly addressing a specific "you", such as "To Celia" or "To Elsie," or whomever.

Also, I would jettison the really prosaic phrases such as the tablecloth "is soiled" and "the waitress brings the check."

Otherwise, the piece is very nice.

These were all gentle criticisms, right?

[DanBierce]

Thanks, Virgil and AuntShecky. I always appreciate critique. Helps a lot to know what works well for readers and what doesn't.

The "waitress brings the check" line(s) have bothered me, also. It was probably better before I revised it. I'll be tinkering with that some more.