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Monday, September 08, 2008

Draft - Mr. Bates

    Mr. Bates

    Loneliest number -- not one –
    and three is not a crowd
    from a watcher’s point of view.

    A neighbor peeks through
    cracked curtains and
    seeks booty-call visuals
    in Pottery Barn bedrooms.

    He catches a non-missionary glimpse
    when the breeze sweeps across
    an empty manicured lawn
    and creeps into summer-spilled windows.

    Soccer mom rides blind
    in the night bathed by noisy
    blue television light.

    With a final grind,
    lithe hips slip. Her real
    estate husband dips his
    Ken doll head, hitting
    his numbers for the month
    before twitching to sleep.

    She sighs – unbridled –
    paying no never mind
    to Gary Two-Doors-Down.

    Mr. V for Voyeur
    who, from a distance, can’t see
    the thin sheen of passion
    glittering her skin but feels
    the heat in the palm of his hand.


    This is a step outside of the comfort zone for me, but it is based on a prompt given out at Read.Write.Poem, so I just had to give it a try. Check out the others...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can read the frustration here..

what does one call it?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I think you're absolutely right that three is indeed the loneliest number - there's nothing like the company of a loved-up couple to make the gooseberry feel lonely and single! Well done for stepping outside your comfort zone!

Anonymous said...

Yes, interesting things always happen outside the comfort zone. You get to a real sense of suburban creepiness here. I like it.

Anonymous said...

You create a scenario here most of us would not enter otherwise. I'll be sure to close my curtains and draw the blinds tonight! Very effective.

susan said...

Soccer mom rides blind/in the night bathed by noisy/blue television light.

You might be out of your comfort zone, but you do create some really good phrases and images like the one above.

Anonymous said...

Great rhythm, good structure and fine images, well done.

Anonymous said...

so glad to bring you out of your comfort zone -- it was central to the prompt. yay! i like all the drama the watcher witnesses ... other people's issues (although the watcher intended to see just The Sex).

it's an interesting dynamic, and when i read your disclaimer about it being outside your comfort zone, i thought, "ooh, it would be awesome to reflect that discomfort somehow in the watcher!"

Regina said...

I can really latch onto Nathan's suburban creepiness comment... this was so well done and really successful in creating just the right mood for the prompt.
Wow...

Ana said...

i second, the next door voyeur is very well captured.