Made In Hell
Her face was one-way glass
blank-innocent as a child's mirror,
her baby-blues welling soft,
winking not revealing
the opposite who watched
from the other side. She made her play
in a liar's crimson night where rain
greased the sidewalk smearing neon light
on the moon-hidden passage she shaded in her wait,
cigarette drooping smoke like San Francisco fog
above her golden gate.
His eyes matched her lipstick, hard as bathtub gin,
clear and extinguished as only eyes can be
that have seen the life go dead too many times,
suckered by patriotic chords that march
the rotting feet of war with tunes
suitable to aim your bullets by.
All that was over now
or always here to stay; a grin
is only smoke
curling in the shadow
of a tipped fedora's brim.
The kiss was never meant to be a trap,
but it snapped her leg and crippled him for life
neither able to ever run again, tangled in
booze and the dicey bed spread with ice-cold aces
and eights. And when the children came
they never could make the change;
just learned they had to
pretend to be
someone else.
June 2023
posted for I Wake Up Screaming
Images: Still from Secret Beyond The Door, 1947 Public Domain
Manipulated photo dated 3-7-1949 from personal collection ©joyannjones
Her innocent face, his hard eyes, the kiss that was a trap - I can see it all. The closing lines say so much, so well.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sherry.
DeleteA cute noir meet dripping with hyperbaric smart talk ("cigarette drooping smoke like San Francisco fog / above her golden gate" and "His eyes matched her lipstick, hard as bathtub gin") whose devastating conclusion was foregone all the way -- those suckers should have just kissed that once, better never. But that's where movie mayhem separates from all that transpires beyond the matinee: it's the Kryptonite in the kiss which strands fleeting love, leaving it "tangled in booze and the dicey bed spread with ice-cold aces / and eights." It wasn't til the third reading I caught the pic at the end and wondered what was confirmed in your labels. Of course. The noir is much scarier when things go from literate to literal. Some brass knuckles here, Hedge, stellar.
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. The personal becomes societal and vice versa, looking at the twistings of an era in people's guts. The fedora'd gentlemen has had some liberties taken since I never knew him, and of course, he followed your advice and ran from that kiss. Wonder if your father ran across a certain Chief Petty Officer at Great Lakes Navel Base, where he was up from Houston to hit the Chicago bars, and the Evanston girls. But that would have been another decade, I think. Thanks again for reading, and for a disturbing but eloquent prompt.
DeleteOh, this is darkly delicious (as a poem) and chilling as a reflection in a funhouse mirror of an actual grim sideshow. i love love love how you have the rain--usually seen as a cleansing thing-- "greasing" the sidewalk. That's a genius move. The description of the eyes, the cigarette smoke grin, and the Dead Man's Hand, as well as the harrowing ending are all spot on to the prompt and just damned good writing.
ReplyDeleteI also read this more than once ... "a grin is only smoke curling in the shadow of a tipped fedora's brim." stopped me cold. Magnificent write Joy.
ReplyDeleteLine after bewitching line of breathless poetry. The opening stanza is pure unadulterated lure. Who could resist such imagery? And then he, hard as bathtub gin ( oh be still my poetic thumping heart) and wrecked by that , 'over now or always here to stay' mantra ( sheesh!!)...of course the kiss would be a killer. I adored every drop of this juice. WpW.
ReplyDelete