storeeze

In a warm-lit St. Louis night You drew me into a flame. Monday at BB's Your loose-knit top Stares me in the face: White-velvet In a black-silk cage. I call for Monk and a tango, Catherine D. Snow Comes up fast— You're hot, girlie! On an afternoon of morning, The dark is rising. Here is your card, Do you feel it? The Second Child. He is the reason . Y ou’re tired. They’re here, It won’t be long.

The first stanza is really nice and a very solid image. In the second stanza, the images move quickly and become more personal. On the third stanza, the details about Arlene seem to center the poem and where it the poet is at his most confident. Some symbolism is presented to the reader, and life and death seem to be the likely code to decipher. It seems to parallel with the ‘The second Child/He's the reason’. Whatever the case, I feel a balance is trying to be played, between a personal observation and deeper philosophical insight. To thread these concepts together can be difficult I give credit to the poet for trying his hand at such a difficult endeavor.  —Kent Walker, my writing coach a. R ichard upon hearing of her death, suggested that Arlene was ‘a flame of exuberance’. A rlene’s voice struck some listeners as ‘unattractive’ or ‘pushy'.  So full of life, s he would burst out of her  skin. A force of nature, she had a joy in her, a love of life with the confiden...