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mark woolard
Member
since 2001-01-02
Posts 143


0 posted 2001-01-10 06:00 PM



Saturday

She sits on the porch
wearing baggy pants
facing west,
waiting.

She sits and she sings
on the steps of the porch
wearing black sweatshirt
facing west,
watching:

A city bus
(gunshot)
the garbage truck
(gunshot)
Sirens and traffic
(gunshot)

These will never take away
the voice on the porch
where Veronica sings.

© Copyright 2001 mark woolard - All Rights Reserved
Raj_Yura
Junior Member
since 2001-01-08
Posts 13

1 posted 2001-01-10 06:40 PM


Mark- I liked the contrast between music of a
woman singing within and the noise outside.
watching west and waiting west means something specific ?

mark woolard
Member
since 2001-01-02
Posts 143

2 posted 2001-01-11 11:07 AM


facing west
waiting.

-waiting for the sun to set, another day to pass because she no longer wants to be a child.

facing west
wacthing:

-watching all these things happen before her:  the noise of the city, the sunset, and the progression of the years that she will one day regret happened so quickly.

. . .but her voice will still remain.

Pearls_Of_Wisdom
Member
since 2000-09-02
Posts 175

3 posted 2001-01-11 01:13 PM


Hi Mark,

Oh, now I'm confused. Up until I read your post, I thought you were talking about a woman who was waiting on the porch because she wants her boyfriend / husband to come home, but he's been shot and he'll never come home again. That seemed like a neat idea and a subtle way of expressing it. Well, I liked it, but I didn't get the waiting to grow up thing. Where does the gunshot come in then? Death of her childhood or something?

mark woolard
Member
since 2001-01-02
Posts 143

4 posted 2001-01-11 01:56 PM


Yes, it can definately symbolize the death of her childhood (that was actually something I tried to express "between the lines"), but the gunshot images are my way of describing her surroundings:  old, crack alley-type neighborhood.

I tried to contrast the innocence of beauty and childhood with the chaos of a world that can no longer accomodate such things; yet they endure despite the darkness.

M'Hal
Junior Member
since 2001-01-04
Posts 15

5 posted 2001-01-11 11:36 PM


Mark-

Loved it for what it ment to me.  I took the baggy pants to symbolize Veronica's passing childhood, passing innocence into fitting into the crack neighborhood.  The next two stanza's seemed to support that...  But then the last stanza brought it back to your explanation.  Hope you don't mind me sharing my different view after you've explained in detail.

M'Hal

Marq
Member
since 1999-10-18
Posts 222

6 posted 2001-01-12 06:38 PM


I think you've got a good idea here, but I don't think most cities are like this anymore -- even NYC.  I like the gunshot in parentheses thing but you need some images to go with it.  
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