Snapshots

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ampoule

Where are you, Prince? Are you out snapping more pictures? The way you see people makes me want to.....see people. ;)

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Ah, that is sweet! It's nice to be missed. There have been a couple of interruptions to my visits to the cafe. Besides, the weather prevents me from sitting outdoors and I haven't yet got used to my indoor lenses.

A girl, as thin
as a wafer, goes by
in one direction, followed,
in the other, by a Khassid,
as shapeless as a pile
of freshly-washed black linen

In a doorway,
tucked out of the cold wind,
a man with a ruined face
and watery, beseeching eyes,
attends to his cigarette

Lovely contrast

"A wafer thin girl..." and

"...a Khassid,
as shapeless as a pile
of freshly-washed black linen"

The descriptions of two wildly different women, unless of course, the mysterious Khassid is also a wafer thin girl. Delicious to think about.

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Perhaps the man's cigarette is the only fire available in a frozen cityscape.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Makai

Lovely contrast

"A wafer thin girl..." and

"...a Khassid,
as shapeless as a pile
of freshly-washed black linen"

The descriptions of two wildly different women, unless of course, the mysterious Khassid is also a wafer thin girl. Delicious to think about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps the man's cigarette is the only fire available in a frozen cityscape.

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The Khassid I had seen was male. Kassidic women do not (as far as I know) wear black as their daily garb but the most extraordinarily drab dresses and stockings that resemble the orthopaedic sort, and of course wigs.

Thanks for clarifying Prince, I was thinking ir was something else.

A man approaches the café,
reels as if from the cold,
his gloveless hands
drawn deep inside
the sleeves of his parka,
enters, speaks for a moment
with the counterman.
then leaves.

Pom-pom bobbing
atop his wool tuque,
a guy with his entire face
organized around a mile-wide smile
plows his way
along Côte-des-Neiges Road

I love these short poems of yours. Little cliff hangers! And often profound!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Pom-pom bobbing
atop his wool tuque,
a guy with his entire face
organized around a mile-wide smile
plows his way
along Côte-des-Neiges Road

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I would like to meet him. I love people! I like these!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Pom-pom bobbing
atop his wool tuque,
a guy with his entire face
organized around a mile-wide smile
plows his way
along Côte-des-Neiges Road

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This is delightful -- your opening line drew me in, and as I read I knew I'd not be disappointed. You always paint such a perfect picture of your visions in your poetry. I pictured the fellow's huge apple cheeks, rosy in the morning frost, and a thick accent français to boot! :nod:

Added bonus -- PrinceMyshkin has spelled the mystery word here once and for all. I never know how to spell tuque. :blush:

p.s. A person from another country was asked one day by a news person with Canadian Trivia questions -- 'what is a tuque'. Only about two people out of ten or twelve knew what it was. And a wopping fifty percent of the incorrect answers were that it was a 'lady's undergarment'... Oh the injustice of the wonderful tuque... :D

Young women
wheel their babies by
in strollers.
It’s like a mobile museum
of freshly-painted masterpieces

I love them all on this page, how you look at an ordinary person on an ordinary day and see a masterpiece.

Leaving the cafe
I come face to face
with a much younger man,
hair like red brick
just after a rain
and a moustache to match.

“Nice moustache,” I say,
pointing at it. “Thanks,” he says.
Broad smile. “You, too.”

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Young women
wheel their babies by
in strollers.
It’s like a mobile museum
of freshly-painted masterpieces

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Beautiful. :)