THREE ACT PLAY. FICTION IN VERSE. And a parody by Marcus Bales.

A version of this poem was originally published in Meniscus. It was an early attempt   to write fiction in verse. After the poem, you can read Marcus Bales' parody.

Three Act Play.

 

1) Hotel Interior, Night

 

You were with me in the darkness, curled

on the unfamiliar bed. The nightlights

of the hotel swimming pool shimmering the room; 

the sound of surf shivering the air. 

Another dream, perhaps, until your nightmare 

shook us both awake. I held you safe until 

your breathing steadied, gentled, signaled 

you had gone far out to calmer water

where stars were fixed and distant.

The rain began, hesitant and then insistent. 

Awake alone, admiring the angle of your shoulder 

the shadows on your back. Although 

come dawn, you’d turn, smile, welcome me, 

everything we did was broken light

dancing on that isolation flesh tries to deny. 

 

2) Exterior: Early Morning Bus Stop Philosophy 

 

You left while I was sleeping. Who knows when we’ll meet again?

So consider the mini bus that will take me to the airport,

stopped at the traffic lights. How many centuries of ingenuity

produced this banal sight? Still too asleep to fumble my itinerary 

I stare out towards the estuary, imagine a rough man knapping flint,

lurching towards comfort. He could not have imagined

the bakery, the weight loss-center, gym and launderette. 

the twisted perfume of a cigarette, the woman smiling at her phone.

He’d know the wind and tide, that space where light and water 

meet and never merge but did he understand ‘alone’?

 

3) Domestic Interior: Evening Rush Hour. 

 

A good day’s work, first home, now dinner’s done. So why

do I imagine a pond too dark to fathom, beneath bare trees;

imagine being dragged down through surface scum of leaves, down 

past drowned and damaged faces adrift in the darkening cold?

Unnoticed daylight is reduced to silvered remnants on a table set for two.

Outside the traffic that she’s stuck in is a wall of noise, inside, 

fear, rising from the shadows to the dark.  

In the street, their day reflected in the way they stride  

or slouch or pause to window shop, parents sheepdog children, 

school kids shoal, all moving to and from but moving on. 

I watch them from the kitchen window, reassured and surfacing,

waiting for her footsteps on the path; the way she struggles with the lock

the way she calls me from the hall before she shuts the door,

starting the ripples which will carry us towards  morning.

If Liam Guilar had written 'I will Survive'. By MARCUS BALES

You left while I was sleeping: no goodbye 

As bad as any talk or any note, 

Because in any case I had no vote, 

And even you could not illumine why. 

I think of how a rough man knapping flint 

Inching towards comfort, could not have thought

Of memory-foam. What he knew was taught 

By close attention to each tiny hint. 

And now you're back that look upon your face 

Which once you knew that I could not resist 

Me wondering what tiny hint I've missed 

But no. Go out the door. There is no place 

For you here any more. I knap this stone 

And wonder, did that rough man know alone?