Snapshots

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

A late-twentyish woman walks by
on bare shapely legs
the length of many an entire
smaller woman, and before
I’ve had my fill of looking at her,
she’s two blocks over and gone!

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Wonderful! Perfect lighting on this one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

A late-twentyish woman walks by
on bare shapely legs
the length of many an entire
smaller woman, and before
I’ve had my fill of looking at her,
she’s two blocks over and gone!

---

This is great!! Very vivid!
Hey Shou, have you noticed all these women who post here that they love your poetry?? :p We love you, Shou! :)

A man with a scowl
as hefty as the 300-odd pounds
he carries around with him, bullet head
and dark, dark beard,
heaves his way up
the three concrete steps
into the café

A young guy approaches the cash,
his lower lip
underslung by a tuft of hair
as wispy as a butterfly’s fart

Deborah at the café
turns out to speak Hebrew,
broke up with her lover
that morning.

After we’ve exchanged
the basics of our lives, she tells me:
“I’ve travelled half the world.
That was easier
than what I went through this morning.”

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Deborah at the café
turns out to speak Hebrew,
broke up with her lover
that morning.

After we’ve exchanged
the basics of our lives, she tells me:
“I’ve travelled half the world.
That was easier
than what I went through this morning.”

---

I like this one. I understand this feeling of overwhelming sadness, which is very well expressed here.

I take a seat at an outdoor table
next to Joseph, a fellow Jew,
and we launch into a discussion
bemoaning Israeli treatment
of the Palestinians and of
Jewish chauvinism.

Just beyond us a light wind
trembles the leaves of the trees.

A young girl, thin as a twig,
clack-clack-clacks her way
on stiletto heels
at the end of her even thinner legs

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

I take a seat at an outdoor table
next to Joseph, a fellow Jew,
and we launch into a discussion
bemoaning Israeli treatment
of the Palestinians and of
Jewish chauvinism.

Just beyond us a light wind
trembles the leaves of the trees.

---

It used to be that when things moved the picture blurred. Amazing what these new cameras can do. Those last two lines made me tremble.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ampoule

It used to be that when things moved the picture blurred. Amazing what these new cameras can do. Those last two lines made me tremble.

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Thank you, P. There's a saying in Yiddish I mostly deplore: "It's hard to be a Jew!"

Truth is, for some of us, It's hard to not be a Jew! I do try to take a holiday from it from time to time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

A young girl, thin as a twig,
clack-clack-clacks her way
on stiletto heels
at the end of her even thinner legs

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Love this one! It could be a description of my niece. Lord that girl is thin and all legs! Getting married next month at 21. :)

For a moment or two
this St John the Baptist holiday
there is no one and nothing outside the café
but the sun that picks out every detail of the street,
the low and sometimes impatient
susurrus of the passing cars,
the voices of Nathalie
and a couple of customers
through the wide-open windows
and the leaves that may be murmuring
their quiet, matutinal prayers

I would not be able to frame this picture because it moves. I love the way it comes to life, the way mornings do.

An almost alarmingly pregnant woman
goes by, her abdomen
like Kilimanjaro on the horizontal

As someone who has been pregnant every other year for the past decade and a half.... I LOVE this one! Belly like Kilimanjaro, indeed!