Thursday, January 28, 2010

Red Car

Total Feckin' Eejit's having a party, and in honour of the event I've dragged Pure Fiction out of retirement, but this time it's purely for the poetry.
The party's in honour of Nuala NĂ­ Conchuir's latest poetry collection, Portrait of the Artist with a Red Car. I love her blog and I've been dying to hop on TFE's poetry bus ever since it started out, but before I managed to leap aboard, it crashed. So this time I'm grabbing the chance before the bus gets too full, then I'm heading over to TFE's for what sounds like the party of a life-time.

Driving

The road is not red,
exactly, more of a pink.
‘It’s the sandstone that makes
it that colour,’ one of them says,
but that is not something
you need to know, when you’re
six-years-old and you’re sitting
in the car with your knees
pulled up under your coat.

And your eyes are pinned
on the hill ahead
and the road is pulling you
forward, onwards,
eating you up, eating up
the time this drive will take,
when the three of you,
just you three,
are together.

And everything is pink.
The gently patterned hill.
Your hand on the back of the seat.
Their faces, turning slightly away.

10 comments:

  1. Welcome bacxk TF, delighto to have you aboard!I love this poem.What is it with these enigmatic endings,their faces turning slightly away.What does this imply /forebode,if anything??

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  2. Loved this—with all the pink of the sandstone and the faces and the hand.
    So glad you're on the New and Improved bus!

    You don't have any "followers" posted, but I'll be signing up so you appear on my dashboard.

    See you soon!

    Kat

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  3. Thanks Kat - and TFE. I'm delighted to be on the new bus.

    As for enigmatic endings, I suppose this one could imply that everything may not be as perfect as it seems?

    I'm adding the follower toggle Kat. Thanks for signing up.

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  4. 'Eating you up, eating you up'...it's good.
    x

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  5. I really like this. The last two lines add just enough ambiguity to be unsettling and lead us to speculate on the situation this child is in. Really nicely done. I'm glad you've gotten on the bus!

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  6. Thanks Rachel and Karen, for the kind comments.

    I'm really enjoying being on TFE's poetry Bus too. (I was going to write I'm enjoying the ride but it just looked sooo wrong) :)

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  7. Please don't stop I just discovered you and am enjoying Aunt Dee, Clementine and Michael and all the feckin this and feckin that going on!

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  8. Thanks a million for reading Moira, and for the lovely comment. I'm still not sure what's happening to pure (feckin) fiction, but it's great to know you enjoyed the read.

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  9. I love pieces like this, with a subtle change of direction at the end. Some really god images appeared in my mind reading this. Thanks.

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