Night, Dim Night And It Rains*

[Bernie01]

The Christmas lighted ferry is dangerous this time of year,
the flooded black water runs to tangling moss bank to bank
and dim snapping turtles lurk just out of view.

Kiss me for luck as I embark with my cardboard valise
of worthless wrist watches to sell in Delhi.

If I am naked when you visit my rooms no need to avert
your eyes, love makes us husband and wife. In the first
embers of evening shadows fill the ceiling, our record
of intimate embrace.

The battered wash stand and dented pitcher look on
beside a forgotten stub smudged by your lips. I am mute
like a man spying on bathing women in the Ganges.



*Title from a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

[BobBradshaw]

I like the subdued tone of this, the understated observations...the tangling moss bank, the sly turtles just out of view....

[FranktheFrank]

Buy your lips or by your lips.

The Ganges ends in Calcutta (now Kolkata), or part of it does,
I do so prefer Calcutta. Suggest our pal visits Calcutta if he spies
or alludes to spying on women washing in the Ganges.

Nothing is worthless in India, the citizens will always survive where
where we westerners would starve pretty quick. So suggest:
used watches or repaired or even recycled watches maybe stolen
from tourists or recycled lost watches with character, burnished like new.

Loquacious in L8, I see shadows, maybe: shadows fill the ceiling
or abide, I don't know . . .

A [cigarette] stub smudged with your cherry-red gloss. (what other stub could it be)
I am content, I think about women bathing in the sacred Ganges. (irony lust and holiness - supposed holiness all I see is dead bodies and filth)

Different approach from you this time Bernie
my goodness me, you have been bitten this month
with the writing bug, keep going man, all gold.

[Bernie01]

Bob---


i assume the reader knows everything..so, no preaching, no historical retrospective, no moralizng, talking to a friend, that tone. self awareness is the key. sensibility.

thanks for the comment.




Frank---


your excellent edits now in the pom, terrific.

i want something immediately understood...like Ganges.

narrator is speaking from a city that is not identified. but about to try his luck in Delhi.

Siva often turns a jaundiced eye on the river, but still it is popular with many.


might say, this is a series poem---of leaving. of borders. etc.


thanks.


bernie




https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/sea ... tion=click

[Kenneth2816]

Bernie, I'd go for stanza breaks after view, New Delhi, and embrace.

Unsure about turtles being sly.

Would change floods black river to
flooded black waters.

Minot nits, but I do believe the stanza breaks would serve your piece better.

Great imagery, colonial feel, wonderful.

[Bernie01]

Ken---

made those changes---including a turtle that is now dim and no longer shy.


terrific comments, much thank yous.



bernie