roses rucked in rows to weather the weather. through the dreary pane farther off, together
comes a father & a bride thru airs and morning rain — no hymn down the aisle no maids for her train. now crow caws the cause consign these hours to daze neither alms nor pleas just days 'n days 'n days... our thrones o’er thrown we parse two by two the tolled and the tolling the far and the few. listening for cymbals listening to lyres sirens still ringing our houses a-fire. and at night there’s wine and weed we read and reel and reak and wrack and feel and deal and our soft pillowed heads roll round and round round and round until blameless morning blooms bright and stark still together, still apart we drift becalmed aboard this ark.
Image: Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung polaroids from the set of Wong Kar Wai’s film ‘In the Mood for Love’ set in Hong Kong of the 1960s. (unknown source). For me the film, though elegant was of the same oppressive monotony that lock-down has brought to many.
Lucy is hosting over at Dverse today and asks us to write something ‘darker’ and a ballad to boot.
And for your listening pleasure what else but Yumeji’s theme from In the Mood for Love?
Peter Frankis writes 
I can definitely see the themes of isolation and lockdown, Peter. As well, I can see the imagery of being stranded and lost, and then losing hope. Truly, it is a solemn piece to read. This piece especially utilizes clever alliteration and word-play. Very fun to read aloud, as well. Amazing piece!
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You are so deft with your word choices & sounds Peter. A pleasure to read this & imagining what this looks – a muted but still fun celebration!
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Thanks so much Grace – this one had been hanging around a while, so glad to finish it.
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You have done a wonderful work here. So many great images woven into the poem.
We awake… together, yet still apart!! The story of our live and some of our relationships as well!
Dwight
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I like the wordplay in your poem. The film clip makes it look like an art film. The music is good. The place you leave the couple at the end is not a place you want to get to, but I guess it’s better than totally apart.
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Wonderful. Atmospheric claustrophobic and chilling. It is all extremely good but the image of the roses stays longest for me.
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(yes for me too).
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In some ways, this is the darkest yet. So close.
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Wow, there is the true darkness of real life in this: full of suffocating monotony. I love the phrase ‘farther off, together’ and how you revisited this idea in the final stanza. I’m a stickler for killer final lines, and you’ve given us one with ‘we drift becalmed aboard this ark.’ Excellent piece.
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You start this with the jerky, clipped rhythm of a train or an old film projector, the story unfolding in its predictable mediocrity and then the penultimate stanza, sluggish, languid, of reality, picking up at the end as the train rattles away, the film rattle to the credits.
Really good use of rhythm, and I love the rose imagery!
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Thanks Jane, this one had been hanging around for a while and it insisted I finish it. Glad you liked.
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I did 🙂
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Cruel words about ‘In the Mood for Love’ 😔
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Yes, perhaps. I was thinking of how little space the lovers had, how their destinies were foreclosed and how inevitable their final separation. I’ve got to go and watch it again.
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This was beautiful riding Peter I especially liked the elongated verse where you took us into the party and do the action the frivolity little bit of the craziness was a good read kept me in detail all the way through well done bravo
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I keep thinking, she’s locked up in an enamelled jewellery box.
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I especially liked “the toiled and the toiling, the far and the few”. Some great phrases here. Good read!
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Thanks Bev, glad you liked it.
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This is incredibly gorgeous, Peter! I especially love; “blameless morning blooms.”💝
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There’s so much pathos here of tow lives thrown together by circumstance, increasingly drifting apart, and finally claustraphobically drifting along, just surviving. I love the juxtaposition of images like random photographs. So well done!
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This lockdown lethargy expressed so well… the pictures you show and your poem reminds me of a Hopper painting (which is of course perfect for pandemic)
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Yes – of course – all those empty rooms, yearning women (mostly), windows onto landscapes going on and on – Hopper – yes.
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A wonderful bleak look at life and lockdown, Peter. Unlike viewpoints that might shrink us, yours is expansive, and, I think, appropriate, because our mental state forms the lens through which we see the past, as we wait for *something* to happen.
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I love the broken meter.
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Glad you liked it – thank you.
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