gives us: ashen, knack, scald, sisters, crush, instinct,
story, scatter, urges, shards, charm, whispering
between
this is the deep hour, when old days expire
and the young, despair. outside of savings time.
a black-and-white, its bar of blue at ease,
shifts toward the Waffle House, by instinct
the cruiser has a knack for this dressage:
following a solitary cop’s desires.
and the cop
wants to study
the Nighthawks
ashen and florescent, drunken, sleepless;
scalding the charms of the night away
while the fry cook scatters and scrambles the shards
of crushed heroes, hunters, whispering sisters,
and a car, and a man with a story of his own.
_______________________
Waffle House is a chain of diners. One of their signature dishes is “Real Hashbrowns: all the way” ” Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, Diced, Peppered, Capped, Topped, Country”. You may also get them plain.
The fry cook is working center stage, and getting his (usually, for some reason, a guy) orders by ear. The music of the communication with the waitresses, and the choreography of movement in the narrow space behind the counter is fascinating at any time. I have been there (in the past, of course) a little more than tipsy, and a little less than straight, and in that condition, you can be astounded.
_____________________________________
It’s late. ( I’m in one of those spells of not-quite-insomnia. You listen to traffic sounds and wind) This combines a couple of prompts, and has smidgins of things that have been in the back of my mind, some of them for long enough that they’ve gotten in together and produced offspring. The voice here is all over the place. I was going for mood, but came way too close for comfort to sounding like self-parody. Still, there are some things worth salvaging. I think.
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very cool… you paint such a vivid picture of these wee hours..love the image of the cook, scrambling the shards of crushed heroes… so many stories on these nightly roads..
Mystery and symbolism abound in this wordle. Well worth keeping and ? adding to ?
I think you’re right (as if that were unusual). When I re-read, I hear how sketchy it is.
ha, having been on patrol in the wee hours, i can picture this completely…def think you have something in that last stanza…a man with a story, we all have them to tell some you could just listen to forever….
You have really set the scene well here, Barbara. You deftly created memorable people with few words. Those early hours do have their own cast of characters, most of them I never meet. LOL.
Love the atmosphere… the Waffle House and IHOP are very interesting places to be in those wee hours between midnight and new morn.
http://lkkolp.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/who-cares-about-whats-that/
not all over the place…. every place … powerful drifting surreal mood and a ‘man with a story of his own’ wonderful… stay up and write in this reverie more often
Waffle House sure brought back some old memories, Barb. I used to take my daughter there on an occasional Sunday morning, when I had a desire for their (greasy) hashbrowns. There was always an odd assortment of clientele there. I can see this character clearly.
Pamela
Yes, “covered”, that is how I liked them
i like the set up and the images and mood here
It is moody alright. The last stanza illuminates. There’s a reference to Nighthawks I note. That kind of mood.
very interesting poem. I think you need to come back to it after a month of not looking at it, seeing if you add another layer.
yep. I think you’re right.
I really like this, you created such atmosphere with your words. It was almost cinematic in the images that flashed through my mind as I was reading. I enjoyed it.:-)
You certainly captured that early morning sense and mood. Especially the need to create the stories of those stray customers, straggling in, one at a time. Thanks for stopping by,
Elizabeth
http://soulsmusic.wordpress.com/
Agree–very cool, evocative–the whole set-up is quite interesting. (Shards of images.) K.