Off to work

[DieterM]

A milky dawn rises over the suburb.
Rosy my cheeks, rosy the newborn sun on my skin…
I walk down the side street
and try to still the bats in the attic:
work to do, letters to write,
carry out projects, phone someone.

The bar-tabac* smells of coffee and ennui.
Fifteen minutes to buy cigarettes
because the man behind the counter,
glasses sparkling, whisker trembling,
complains about a fluttering heart
to a bartender who doesn’t care.

Down another side street
with grey facades and sleeping windows.
A streetsweeper, on the phone,
hoses down the pavement—
“Putain, quel con!**”—
my blue jeans are soaked now.

There is the huge construction site
where cranes, still silent,
stretch skywards and whisper
to each other in their lost language.
I cross a handsome dude
and have to suck in my forty-year old little belly.

Then the main street:
cars HONK! HONK! HONK!
to keep the ambient anarchy at bay
and still don’t make a difference.
School children mill around and yell.
It’s Friday morning, I’m already tired.

_____

* In France: a pub where cigarettes are sold
** "Damn it, what a jerk!"

[hannah_arendt]

My favourite fragment:

"There is the huge construction site
where cranes, still silent,
stretch skywards and whisper
to each other in their lost language"


I would work a little bit more on the middle of the poem.

[EvoWarrior5]

I do not know that much about poetry yet so I don't feel like I am fit to comment on the poem as a whole, but I think that the last line in particular is a bit weird.
"It’s Friday morning, I’m already tired." doesn't sound like a very unordinary thing to me. Since it is already the last day of the week, even if it is only morning it is not uncommon that you'd feel tired, since you'd already have had 4 days of work behind you.
I think it would look better if it were "It's only morning, I'm already tired" or perhaps "It's monday / tuesday morning, I'm already tired.

I also agree with hannah, the part about the cranes does sound good.

[Buh4Bee]

I enjoyed the overall atmosphere here.

Like the idea of sucking in the 40 year old gut in when a cutey walks by. How do these things happen to us?

[AuntShecky]

I liked the newborn sun and the cranes (I assume the construction equipment and not the birds) speaking to each other in a lost language. Can relate to the coffee aroma and cigarette odors --not sure you can smell ennui, though you can "feel" it, though not through your fingers. I'd drop "blue" and just say "jeans." Drop "huge" and "dude" (too prosaic for a poem) whereas "ambient anarchy" though alliterative is a tad too abstract for a sensuous street scene. I say sensuous, because the imagery depends on the senses--smelling, hearing, seeing.

[DieterM]

TY everyone for commenting; been quite overloaded with work (tedious work, and isn't it always, lol) and hadn't found time to answer earlier. I think I will leave this piece for a while and then come back with a "new and innocent" pair of eyes in some months to have a new go, taking into consideration all your helpful suggestions.