Snapshots

[simplyme]

Jer wonder how to tell her? "Yes, but how to tell her how charmed
I have always been by her..."


I think you just told her---------! This isn't exactly a note passed under a desk!

[Umbilical]

I don't think that you have to be turned on by all women, just turned on by different things within different people. You can see a facet of someone that arouses desire, or a part of your own self-lust in another...
(in response to Virgil)
Pretty much everyone I know has turned me on at least once...

[PrinceMyshkin]

I like this, dear Sharon, and hope you will begin constructing stories and poems entirely of your own devising!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Driving to the café this morning
I catch sight of a young woman
fairly coiled in love
around the baby in the crook of her right arm.

I stop the car, roll down the window
and when she has caught up to me, call out:
“Vous êtes en amour
avec votre petite ange, n'est-ce-pas?”

She turns toward me
with a smile like a morning mountain lake.
“Oui...”

Above her arm
I see a tiny, puzzled, brown-eyed face
and below it, dangling pink legs.

I ask the child’s name
and blow her a kiss.
“Luna.”

[kiz_paws]

Driving to the café this morning
I catch sight of a young woman
fairly coiled in love
around the baby in the crook of her right arm.

I stop the car, roll down the window
and when she has caught up to me, call out:
“Vous êtes en amour
avec votre petite ange, n'est-ce-pas?”

She turns toward me
with a smile like a morning mountain lake.
“Oui...”

Above her arm
I see a tiny, puzzled, brown-eyed face
and below it, dangling pink legs.

I ask the child’s name
and blow her a kiss.
“Luna.”

I loved the sprinkling of French in this snapshot - what a beautiful touch.

with a smile like a morning mountain lake.

neat comparison, I loved this.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Three giggling girls,
students at the nearby high-school,
go by laughing in the carefree pleasure
of the moment and of their friendship.

One of them, a young black girl,
so top-heavy I wonder
what if anything
she knows of the rest of herself

[PrinceMyshkin]

A man goes by whose profile
reminds me of de Gaulle,
over a flag-pole spine
his head is tilted back
so that his proud,
almost arrogant nose
sails clear above the heads
of lesser folk

[Sweets America]

These two last ones are representative of your ability to see details and so many things about people and their self-awareness.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Outside le Paltoquet
two lovers stand
like facing cuckoo birds,
the mechanical sort
that bob and dip
into a bowl of water,
only these two
peck at each other’s lips,
kiss after kiss after kiss

[lugdunum]

Oh thank you so much for this thread PrinceMyshkin.

I've been reading your snapshots for about 10 days now. And fortunately there are stil somes I still haven't read....

It feels like having a box of really good chocolates. You know they're too good to eat them all at a time and that you should try to make that box last eating one chocolate at a time, very slowly.
But then they're so good you just keep opening the box again and again.

Bravo!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Oh thank you so much for this thread PrinceMyshkin.

I've been reading your snapshots for about 10 days now. And fortunately there are stil somes I still haven't read....

It feels like having a box of really good chocolates. You know they're too good to eat them all at a time and that you should try to make that box last eating one chocolate at a time, very slowly.
But then they're so good you just keep opening the box again and again.

Bravo!

I wonder if you can imagine how much this comment means to me? You know, when I composed the first of these it was for the pure pleasure of being a witness to what I imagined of someone else's life, but after I posted the first few and found that people were reading them, it became sort of a collaborative effort. I still do it for the pleasure it gives me of observing someone as clearly as I can, but I'm always to some extent aware of those who might be reading them...

[ctalerico]

Three giggling girls,
students at the nearby high-school,
go by laughing in the carefree pleasure
of the moment and of their friendship.

One of them, a young black girl,
so top-heavy I wonder
what if anything
she knows of the rest of herself

WOW!... but then, I've come to expect the exclamation point in your marvelous verse.

[Sweets America]

Outside le Paltoquet
two lovers stand
like facing cuckoo birds,
the mechanical sort
that bob and dip
into a bowl of water,
only these two
peck at each other’s lips,
kiss after kiss after kiss

Excellent!! Love the image!!

lugdunum said:
It feels like having a box of really good chocolates.

So true!!

PrinceMyshkin said:
for the pure pleasure of being a witness

Very Kerouacian, this thing about being an observer! Couldn't help it.

[ctalerico]

Michel, the owner of the café,
strikes me as a perfectly self-contained man.

As others have said, Prince, this snapshot is wonderful in its encapsulation of Michel. In fact, it is those things you select to describe that brings him to life as if he were standing before me. Your remarkable eye for observation is equal to your writing skills--that certainly includes your ability to carve images with control and precision.

He prefers “uncomplicated people,”
hates “drama-queens.”
Talking, serving behind the counter, smoking,
he is at rest.

Early Saturday evening
The streets have rarely offered up so few passersby
The air feels like something is being withheld
The buildings are like a stage set
about to be struck
before the show goes on the road

Another precise construct. My favorite so far! It delights and tickles while an undercurrent reverberates with profundity. Your intellectual honesty is almost painful in its beauty.

a young woman,
who makes me think of a jolly stuffed cabbage,
chats animatedly
with her somewhat
dry-looking male companion

How many people in the entire world--I wonder?--would think of a stuffed cabbage as "jolly" and infuse the notion in verse that makes one think: Damn, that's exactly the right word!

But then, that's what makes you so creative. Bravo! Bravo!

At Tutto Bene part 2

One arm flopped
around his neck,
a young girl sleeps
against her father’s
chest and shoulder
as if painted there

Beautifully sublime or sublimely beautiful, this perfect expression creates in me an exquisite rapture each time I "view" it; for this is much more than reading your verse, Prince, it's a privileged glimpse seeing through--not your eyes--but the every being of your soul! "As if painted there" takes me there every time.

You're as poignant as Brel, as subtle as Monet.

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

Honestly, you are to your verse what A.S. Byatt is to the short story (e.g., The Matisse Stories et al.).

[PrinceMyshkin]

Beautifully sublime or sublimely beautiful, this perfect expression creates in me an exquisite rapture each time I "view" it; for this is much more than reading your verse, Prince, it's a privileged glimpse seeing through--not your eyes--but the every being of your soul! "As if painted there" takes me there every time.

You're as poignant as Brel, as subtle as Monet.

You've picked out one of my favourites too, in that it recalls to me that beautiful image of the unity of the two of them. And the father's composure, the depth and security of the child's sleep, were in such beautiful contrast to the very busy, noisy atmosphere I tried to capture in the snapshot just before that one.