Savannah (extended version)

20 Replies

Savannah

At night, the rotund tourists
roam the street below
drinking light beer from plastic cups
and watching the river flow.

And Chuck, he’s in a restaurant
playing his guitar
for the plaid shorts and polo shirts
and salesmen at the bar.

And life is neither good nor bad
it’s somewhere in between
Chuck thinks that one day
he should leave this river scene.

Time’s a slowly burning fuse
time’s a disappearing muse
in time you feel every wound
time’s a slowly burning fuse.

Karla’s in the house again
trying to catch his eye
her hair is blond and crinkled
makes Chuck think of frozen fries

and when he hits another chorus
she stands upon her chair
chugs back her mojito
and punches the empty air

and he knows that in this deck of cards
we all can’t be the ace
and if you’re going to take a fall
then try and fall with grace.

Time’s a slowly burning fuse
time’s a disappearing muse
in time you feel every wound
time’s a slowly burning fuse.

Jane, the late shift waitress
her husband’s out of town
Chuck thinks that later
he might ask her around

and he’ll forget about alimony
and the rent that he owes
he’ll forget just about every thing
if Jane comes around.

Time’s a slowly burning fuse
time’s a disappearing muse
in time you heal every wound
time’s a slowly burning fuse.

This is based on a short poem I had published in Cyphers magazine. There are other versions of it, even a sonnet, but I think it’s finally settled down.

Taking part in OpenLinkNight over at dverse.

20 thoughts on “Savannah (extended version)”

  3. Lucy

    I find this interesting; to me, it represents the microcosm of our lives as we intersect with others. Purely interactionist and transactional, and perhaps we discover more of ourselves in these social transactions whether it be to forget the major problems of our life or to pursue some fun to spite the boredom with droll. A very beautiful and solemn piece. I also like your after-note about reworking this poem, I wonder if a poem ever truly ends at times. I have a few myself I reworked and deleted, rinse repeat, and I wonder if what we consider our final work now may be just a draft in the years to come. I hate that in-between of it quite honestly, I prefer to know when I am at the end point with my work but it doesn’t always happen that way, does it?

    I enjoyed reading your work very much. 🙂 It’s a great piece!

    Like

    Reply ↓
  7. hedgewitch

    Reminded me a bit, perhaps because of the fourth line, of the kind of resigned ennui in Dylan’s “Watching The River Flow,” where time is seen as a continuum that is an irresistible argument we take part in whether willing or not, and seldom if ever win, except possibly for a few moments when Jane comes around, and the best response is to sit back and let it burn that fuse. Every poem has a history, but some of them want to play with us more than others.

    Like

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s