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portuguese blues
Posted: 08 December 2008
Word Count: 121
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Portuguese Blues.
The kitchen is in perfect order nothing out
of place as winter light seeps through clean
windows and the fridge hums:” open me.”
I do and find cheese and tomatoes wrapped
in plastic, butter in a dish. No, too much work
making a sandwich and then put everything
neatly back in place. Coffee? Nah, it means
boiling water finding a mug and rinsing it
after use. The kitchen is full of gloomy light
I have to push my way out. On TV a big lady,
with dyed hair and powdered bosom, sings
Fado, dark eyes fill the screen with sadness;
yeah she has been around the block ok; I put
my jacket on and walk to the nearest bar.
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 SaintEx at 21:59 on 09 December 2008
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this could do with some drastic reshaping I think, but I do really like it. some lines are just completely intriguing in a loosely-flung sort of way, like 'the kitchen is full of gloomy light', and the sudden empathy with the woman on TV is really affecting, in part for being quite a non-sequitur, but really because we're all constantly emotionally tripped by random stimuli that lie scattered everywhere so it's a very emotive idea.
I like small semantic contradictions like the 'clean windows' that are at odds with the narrator who dismisses having a coffee because of the effort of washing. everything is neatly put away in the fridge; it's as if the speaker has only recently fallen into such a sour mood; all around him are the relics of an ordered life. it could almost not be his home, but that of somebody with a completely different disposition (like whenever I end up staying with my parents after life in student squalor haa). I don't understand the title, but it's a curious enough picture rail to hang the poem off.
the only reason I feel like it needs a reshape is that I'm not sure quite whether it's a poem yet, or prose with forced line-breaks. fair enough I suppose if you're writing on a tiny piece of paper, but I think investigating other forms would let you find perhaps a less faltering way of saying what you do. either squeezing everything into stanzas (and chopping a lot away) or messing with free verse. to some extent, aye, the thickset form suits the listless narration, but still I can't help but feel that there's something tighter here. for instance '"open me." / I do' are quite staccato (a little awkward when everything else is languid) and not entirely necessary - the following line could be put as 'inside, find cheese and tomatoes plastic wrapped...' similarly the 'no,'from line five could be dropped (also there's a typo on the next line, it should 'putting' and 'coffee? nah, it means...' could just become 'coffee means...'
others might have a different opinion- I know that I am finicky, for chopping out as many words as I can, and cling to stanzas like a lifejacket, but here, I see three: 'the kitchen...' to '...in a dish' (or thereabouts), 'too much work...' to 'push my way out' and 'on tv...' starting the final stanza. even if your poem has a completely different final form, it could do no harm to experiment. these are just ideas (likely bad ones) and excuse me for rambling at such length - I only got so carried away because I like so much what's already here; I just reckon it needs a bit off chipping-away-at. bye!
<Added>
p.s., oops, that patronising winkysmilything is an accident of formatting, and not intended!
<Added>
ha ha ha ha! after having checked your profile only after remarking, my comments now look quite presumptuous and maybe even a bit asinine ha oh well I reckon it's better this way
<Added>
hmm
well
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