snow crusted lip,
breathed grey by exhaust,
ditch, in which sits
a beer can
dented & crushed, slow
eaten by rust, intox-
ication consumed, only
one golden drop left, to catch
the sun, un-
noticed by passing cars,
face, window pressed
watching power-
lines murdered by crows
the whistle wind blows
desperado
& he,
daddy,
come home
Tell a story in 55 words. Give it a try or just read more, go see g-man.
Over at dVerse today, Blue Flute is running the bar for FormForAll examining a different approach to our writing by using tanglible images.
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104 comments:
Ooh. Unexpected ending, as always! Love it.
sweet end man. great write!
wow,
very nicely done
+follower
Nice info
Oh... wait. I wasn't ready for that ending.
Great stuff!
Isolation and saddness in 55 words... very powerful. I loved the "lines murdered by crows - the whistle wind blows desperado"...actually I loved it all.
Wonderful closing lines.
And I really enjoyed how you punctuated this piece. Real nice effect there.
Great work.
Yes...come home.
Maybe this one should just stay where he is and end a cycle.
The most amazing image of all, to me, is the one not named. You're such a genius at suggestion and innuendo. The reader can place the perspective and infinity point in this place anywhere. I chose to see this from ground level. Perhaps because I had one who never came home. I don't know. Excellent, as always.
I have actually read and re-read this one. So powerful, so emotional.
The images are so intensely lived, the memory of them we all know, assembled so artfully and sensitively, their utter emptiness and profanity brought to life. Even without the sad ending they would have been enough, like a Rauschenberg assemblage. But the ending adds that poetic dimension of of our souls that no painting can reveal or affect. Wonderful piece.
really cool visuals here, the first stanza is awesome, love it. Really cool ending too. Thanks
Fabulous 55~!
I love "lines murdered by crows."
the line "murdered by crows" stood out for me ~
the ending was bittersweet ~
How do you always make the mundane sights of everyday living glitter with fascination, Brian?
Oh ... I know ... talent!
Brian....
I must be stupid. I don't understand this one at all!!
Sorry Son, I don't think in poetic abstracts.
I'm glad everyone one else gets it...
Thanks for playing though
Have a Kick Ass WeekEnd
Jimmy Buffett come home!
great words as always my friend
Never saw the ending coming
That was a bit bumming
If that is a word
I thought you were going to flip the bird
And end son of a with something that rhymes with ith
But so much better than such a glitch
The crows line was grand too
Oh and blogger is placing you
In spam when you comment other places
I bet it's also making funny faces
Oh and by bumming I mean sad
Poor lad
The ending indeed says it all, Brian!
love how it reads.
This is excellent, brian. The whole thing is told in images, both visual and mental, each one more striking than the last--the ending is way good, in fact the fourth and fifth verses are staggeringly so for both economy and richness of language.
I think I just wrote a longer comment than the poem. ;_) Yeah, okay--so I liked it.
I saw the entire trip and felt the plea at the end. Wonderful work. Love "murdered by crows"
I don't quite understand it too, I do that with poetry sometimes but it is me, but I do understand that at the end the son wants his dad to come home, which makes me feel sad.
For some reason, the part that stays with me the most is that it's "unnoticed by passing cars".
I keep wanting to see it as a metaphor for loneliness; being unnoticed by other people in the world while life speeds by.
But maybe that's just me. :)
Thanks for another Friday 55!
Mine's here. :)
i was envisioning this beautiful pristine snowy landscape and there's a beer can marring it. grossssss!!! good job describing.
You may have meant something totally different, but having had a daddy who drank his way home... this resonated.
On the other hand, I can offset that by focusing on the title, and listening to Jimmy Buffet sing "Salt for your meat, and cinnamon sweet/And the rum is for all your good vices."
Wow, this was great! I'm glad I reread this a few times. The subtle hinting at the event is exactly what makes this give such an impact. I can't say enough good things about it, very clever and delicate use of images to convey powerful emotions indirectly.
Oh, that ending almost made me cry. Very touching, Brian.
I'm with G-man on this one, Brian. I have reread it and reread it. I love the sound and the wording but I just don't understand.
But, with respect for Archibald MacLeish and Ars Poetica...you know... "A poem should not mean, but be..." I will just keep reading it and I hope, at some point, to be enlightened and amazed.
Touching end.Nice.
Wow. So descriptive. I love the ending!
You sure know your way around a line break.
Your endings always surprise me.
And I can never read anything you write but once.
gay and patti def are striking the cord i was going after...a father not home...for whatever reason...
faces pressed to the window...
the empty beer can with one bit left...
the eagles song desperado...
so, that is what my thought was--and i actually appreciate you telling me when you dont understand something...that is def the kind of comments i do not mind....smiles.
Though not in syllabic count, you already right using "plain" imagery to resonate with more and beyond. Another really good read. :)
this hit me madly in the stomach..if you hadn't already given us a hint in the title, i would've thought it's "just" a road scene-- but then, it starts already cold with the snow crusted lips, the breathed grey by exhaust-- then something left - not much though - just one drop, but still powerful enough to catch some warmth - and then i saw him - for whatever reason it was a little boy i saw, pressing his face against the windscreen and all the sadness and loneliness in the world in these last lines.. an awesome, powerful write brian
That was a heavy post with an ending I wasn't expecting. A sad and lonely visual of a little boy watching for his dad to come home is what I saw.
Well done. K.
Seems your murder of crows line was a hit! Having an alcoholic in the family, this was bittersweet. "Daddy come home, but please not with beer." (Not my Dad, just for the record.)
Tina @ Life is Good
Co-Host of the April 2012 Blogging from A to Z Challenge
Twitter:
@AprilA2Z
#atozchallenge
Visually very moving and evocative.
Great...I didn't expect the ending
An excellent ending to this.
Yes...stands out for me too...
"unnoticed by passing cars". A total life; a moment in time...unseen by others.
Powerful Brian
Hugs
SueAnn
I can see all this so clearly, each moment, each step of the way. Superb.
Nice...last lines cool... :)
I crushed beer can makes me think of daddy, too.
I love "power-
lines murdered by crows"
That's brilliant.
My 55 are here.
ah .. how lovely to read and so touching in the end ...
Love ...whistle wind blows desperado-
I kinda did that yesterday,
It was a topsy turvy day. Thanks!
"intox-
ication consumed" -
and the lead through from the face pressed on the glass and crows murdering the lines and back to the boy (in my mind) wanting his dad to come home...
really touching, loved it brian, lots of feeling deep in the images - thanks!
Nice 55 Brian, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who "doesn't get it". Which actually happens more often with poetry than I would like to admit (even though I write it myself).
Anyway, I can relate to the last lines daddy, come home. My daddy was a truck driver, and as a "daddy's girl" I was always waiting for him to come home.
I didn't feel like I needed to understand this one, but I did. Adult child of an alcoholic definitely helped. Got it and glad to read I was on the right track.
I was flummoxed until I read it through again. You are a master of surprise endings.
:-)
Love the way you employed a stark style to echo the subject. Powerful write.
This one reminded me of all those sad little boys who keep waiting for daddies who aren't coming home, for whatever reason. Very sad.
So sad. So many lives are discarded this way.. much like that beer can.
Good images! I'm on record as not being a fan of the word breaks you play with, but the poem is strong regardless of my personal preferences/biases.
Oh, I ... wow. Excellently told. The succinctness making each visual all the more distinct and the ending just sucker punches. Bravo!
not only images, but a story - nice!
"Power lines murdered by crows". Wow. Some great lines in there!
damn! I love this! haunting...I can see the car and hear the crows and hear the rush of the whistling wind. A story in 55 words- now THAT is a challenge- good skills my friend...wish I could capture atmosphere as well as this...
Favourite-
watching power-
lines murdered by crows
the whistle wind blows
desperado
I wish they would all come home.
"/
Brian, this is awesome! :)
68+ comments on 55 words;
a kudo for you, sir; and the
poem is powerful, and contains
all that inner monologue, that
poetry between the lines;
a poetic punch to the plexus.
this hurts a bit....
you are good at that some times
Peace ☮
Interesting!
absolutely nice Brian:)
I like that the wind whistles Desperado.
Grey and bleak, yet hopeful at the same time.
Nice job. :)
nice 55 Brian...that one golden drop...murdered by crows...love it!
Last lines make the poem and break my heart.
Oh! Heartwrenching. Poor little boy. Well done, sir. Thank you.
I loved the formatting on this. It enhanced my enjoyment. It just flowed so nicely.
55 Flash Fiction Friday: I’m Late
Brian,
A wayward Dad it appears. Looking at all life's remnants strewn, reminds of Dad. Come home Dad!
Hank
That is very sad, Brian. Probably very true of many households.
Pamela
Nicely done.
Catching up -- the smell a fire leaves clings to everything. So glad yours wasn't worse. Love the observations on socks (I buy only one color myself) and today's poem is a wonderful, touching bit of wordplay. How DO you do it?
Great images in here! Love the break in words.
A lot of sad longing in that one.
this made me ache inside. in a good way.
nice ending
"Murdered by crows" is so clever I'm jealous I didn't think of it first!
A touching ending. We should all feel like it's okay to go home.
Thats not what I expected at all. You are an amazing writer :)
An unnerving ending Brian. Fantastic!
I hear that lonesome whistle blow...I like how the poem turns kinda country & western with "desperado" too.
I have never seen quite an odd set of line and verse breaks..they really pull the eye into a different place than the usual and makes one read it through and through again. This would be, for me, a hard piece to read aloud.
The Friday drive home from work was always a good feeling for me.
We all welcome someone home at some time.
Wow, that was a touching one! It crushed my heart, like the can in the ditch. I felt it for a moment. Well done.
Pretty crazy combination of images! Dessicated like river beds such a wonderful line. K.
"lines murdered by crows"...that's one great line! Brilliant
My brother and I could so relate to this.
Brian, Brian. So poignant, not far from the experience of many. Leap from can to little boy, my God, brilliant. Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/the-ward-and-me-sunday-whirl/
I think you get an A+ for this assignment!
Beautifully done!
hmm, lines murdered by crows...lots to think about
Wow, Brian! I love the rhythm of this. You paint a clear picture with an economy of words. That's no easy feat.
sounds more like the son is on his way to....is the son going to go home?
This was sad, it touched me.
As always Brian your 55 is powerful and very well composed, carry on the good work, you notice I wait for a few posts before I visit, its just time is the enemy, but I always try to catch up, as I love your work..
Very tangible images here. Crows murder lines - I like that!
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