Adam Fieled (editor, Philadelphia, USA): "On A Party"
Hipsters curled around the banister, as I
guided her up the stairs; caught at loose
ends, no place to be private, have a lie
down, spent from the joints & the juice.
Marianne's bulbous blue eyes went coy,
cast themselves carpet-wards, assured by
no means of conquest-success, as she saw
I had no idea what was coming. I (shy)
could not have known, chosen boy,
what in her was earth, & what sky.
No one noticed anyway. We found ourselves
in a little dark corridor, leading
to a single door. Dreamy, beyond ourselves
in torpor, it seemed Marianne was bleeding;
had seen enough of the party. Wanly, she
sprawled on a nondescript, queen-sized bed.
I paced, spaced, in stoned agitation.
We had, I'd missed, one chance for salvation;
she wanted the flush fullness of head to head.
The marriage she arranged was brief, & free.
If I could crawl back, slowly, through the years,
to revisit what it was like inside
Your Highness, whose big bones & husky jeers
ring down the ages like a water-slide,
I'd say it was a stern, thick-walled tunnel,
monitored carefully by the two blue
orbs, so that I felt tutored by her flesh,
a curious sense of being seen through,
like I'd lived my life & was reaching death,
& into a judgment place my soul was funneled.
Downstairs, what was passed around reached
Mike at a new angle. For fifteen minutes,
he rolled through a newfangled universe. Deep
in drunkenness, he lost his wits. So, quickly (they said), let's
hurry up & get Adam on the case, as they
waited for Marianne's engorged report. Terse
it was not to be, or without craft, color.
Making it or breaking it: which, friends, is worse?
Not a figure on an urn, but a real, live lover;
caught within the trees & the forests; green, as they say.
Deep into the purple night, Mike & I sashayed
down Bainbridge Street; brothers, in the war to
forge a new city; dazed, confused, not much to say,
no skit we've seen like this to run through.
I thought of Marianne, who she could be,
hiding, coyly, behind a cynical wall,
always the first to remainder the stock;
yet Philly was golden then, that we could see;
the night was aglow, engendered a call
from the angels to us to make Philly a rock.
guided her up the stairs; caught at loose
ends, no place to be private, have a lie
down, spent from the joints & the juice.
Marianne's bulbous blue eyes went coy,
cast themselves carpet-wards, assured by
no means of conquest-success, as she saw
I had no idea what was coming. I (shy)
could not have known, chosen boy,
what in her was earth, & what sky.
No one noticed anyway. We found ourselves
in a little dark corridor, leading
to a single door. Dreamy, beyond ourselves
in torpor, it seemed Marianne was bleeding;
had seen enough of the party. Wanly, she
sprawled on a nondescript, queen-sized bed.
I paced, spaced, in stoned agitation.
We had, I'd missed, one chance for salvation;
she wanted the flush fullness of head to head.
The marriage she arranged was brief, & free.
If I could crawl back, slowly, through the years,
to revisit what it was like inside
Your Highness, whose big bones & husky jeers
ring down the ages like a water-slide,
I'd say it was a stern, thick-walled tunnel,
monitored carefully by the two blue
orbs, so that I felt tutored by her flesh,
a curious sense of being seen through,
like I'd lived my life & was reaching death,
& into a judgment place my soul was funneled.
Downstairs, what was passed around reached
Mike at a new angle. For fifteen minutes,
he rolled through a newfangled universe. Deep
in drunkenness, he lost his wits. So, quickly (they said), let's
hurry up & get Adam on the case, as they
waited for Marianne's engorged report. Terse
it was not to be, or without craft, color.
Making it or breaking it: which, friends, is worse?
Not a figure on an urn, but a real, live lover;
caught within the trees & the forests; green, as they say.
Deep into the purple night, Mike & I sashayed
down Bainbridge Street; brothers, in the war to
forge a new city; dazed, confused, not much to say,
no skit we've seen like this to run through.
I thought of Marianne, who she could be,
hiding, coyly, behind a cynical wall,
always the first to remainder the stock;
yet Philly was golden then, that we could see;
the night was aglow, engendered a call
from the angels to us to make Philly a rock.
© Adam Fieled 2020
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