Friday, July 1, 2011

Allan, Allan


At a Clam Cabana carpark,
Allan’s asthma attack alarms Mara. 
Allan hacks and hawks. Spasms, falls. Hands gnash 
at asphalt cracks, rasp at sand straws, claw a blank blank. 
Mara clasps Allan. Wharf rats smash a schnapps flask,
 jackdaws gawk, cars pass, blat and blast,
a cab armada Mara can’t flag . . .
     At last! Swabs and stats! Plasma! Sharps!

Black damask armbands and glass lasagnas amass. 
Alack, alas, Pappa’d want a basalt slab, Alma crabs.
Alack, alas, Pappa’d want calla garlands, Alma smarms. 
Alack, alas, Pappa'd want a Bach psalm, Alma adds. 
What Mara sang was a raw, harsh chant: 
Allan, Allan.

Image: ehow

9 comments:

  1. intriguing. i am not sure who is who...if the names are personalities or other people...asthma sucks...had it as a kid...

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  2. has the feel of a chant

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  3. haha...now you have my tongue in a knot... smiles... cool work on the sounds and word clusters...ugh and asthma def. sucks

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  4. Asthma attacks are scary things...you certainly got those sound effects down. Nice work!

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  5. Clever prose. There is a lot here to process.

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  6. Cunning coiled construction here, a hypnotic weave on words containing "awe." Awesome stuff.

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  7. I can't believe you actually pulled this off--I thought about attempting a same-vowel poem, but it seemed incredibly difficult. "Wharf rats smash a schnapps flask, jackdaws gawk, cars pass, blat and blast." Very cool!

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  8. Whoa - this has the compact tightness of being in a crisis. It reads with a touch of panic, and of fear, and the heightened sense of everything. Well done!

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  9. I agree with Nico, quite a feat of story telling within the restrictions. My favorite line is also the wharf rats . .. Thanks for joining us.

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