Truth is not stomped out by bullies that lie!
Lying, being grandiose, should be a crime.
Truth sparkles like a brilliant gem.
The loudmouthed bully stands as a lonely rock, dripping with grime.
September 29, 2020
8pm PST
An Actor`s life
My life as an artist lasted long although no one saw me acting
only that my behaviour changed if I had read a book and liked
the hero in it, or seen a western movie; became that person.
I could remember pages of lines from a book and the dialogue
in a movie spitting words our, whispering them or roaring like
a wounded gladiator, I had many friends, but they lived in my
head and when at sea lived like a frugal monk who had taken
the vow of silence spending time reading and dreaming.
Walking down the gangplank going ashore I was an FBI agent
on a secret mission and if there was a loud noise I reached
inside my coat-jacket like a had a gun there and looked where
the din came from; people noticed this and moved away from
this odd person at the bar. My favourite act was the as a man
with a writer`s block, walked around with paper and pen, what
I hoped was a soulful look women liked that, but less so when
a boozing loudmouthed cowboy.
These days when reading poetry my wish is to be a good poet
that doesn`t slam doors when leaving; you see I find myself so
tedious I have invented a character interesting and full of life.
As he stood paper cup in hand by the drinking fountain on a train
somewhere south of Kankakee, miles from Chicago,
a quiet, pensive, older man was getting harangued by a loudmouthed,
blowsy, beer drinking, inconsiderate, disheveled and overweight woman.
Aka, his wife.
She finally shut her mouth after he exploded with,
“get your face out of mine, yo breath smells like
you been eatin camel dookey for a week!”
The laughter from the old men in the club car was deafening,
so she just sat down and cried all the way to New Orleans.
This narrative for the comma contest is a childhood memory I observed riding the Illinois Central’s “City of New Orleans.” Circa 1955.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.