The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Trudger
Heavy burdens of life lived loudly
She would like to carry proudly
Truth is stamped soul-deep, and down
Under lines of chalky frown
Purse is German, dress is French
Shoes Italian, teeth are clenched
Shamed by family, maimed by men
Trudging toward new men again
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of Bored Panda, shared by permission with Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.
Thanks to Hannah at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, we learned about salt flats today. They are called “the world’s largest mirrors,” and you can read more about them, as well as see more examples of the Salt Flats, HERE. This woman, dressed up and traversing the salt flat, struck me as lonely and careworn.
The couplets came naturally, and when I read about the iambs and other rhythms at dverse poets, I realized that I had, indeed, come up with a poem that displayed the rhythm (I think) of the trochee, which is the mirror sister of the iamb. TA da TA da… anyway, I’m posting it and am very happy that I was able to fulfill a form prompt.
Peace, Amy Barlow Liberatore (a name that, when pronounced correctly, also employs trochee!)
Lost Soul
He shuffled by, jeans grazing the sidewalk
I caught a whiff of
part bottle of cheap wine,
part bloody confrontation from
last night, carved on his cheek
As his garbage-bag suitcase thumped behind,
he spat in the gutter.
DTs setting in, he twitched
in a crooked gait, a gurgle
singing from deep in his gut.
Before I could stop him to offer a breakfast,
he vanished through a paint-shredded doorway.
My mom would’ve said,
“His porch light’s flickering.”
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (with thanks to Brenda Warren for assembling the Wordle and Mike Patrick for the words): Gutter, flickering, twitched, vanished, crooked, bottle, bloody, gurgle, sidewalk, thump, carved, caught. Also at my poetic touchstone, Poets United.
