The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 7/15/06)

[RetroLounge]

Power Failure

That night when the power went off in the house we had already gone
to sleep, the baby in his crib slumbering beneath his powder blue blanket
and us lost in our king-size bed under a substantial green comforter.
The temperature outside held steady at 15 degrees below zero
and the ice-blue crystal patterns covering the windows kaleidoscoped
the street lights onto the barren white surface of the bedroom walls.
Once more we had fallen asleep back-to-back. After a few hours we
woke up, apart and shivering, aware that time had stopped at 2:13a.m.
The room was black and shadowless, lacking the cerulean glow
of late evening or the graying haze of early morning. Getting up
to investigate, I flipped on the light switch but nothing occurred but
a click in the cleaving silence. Finding a flashlight in the drawer,
I read the thermostat which was set at 74 but it was showing 48
and dropping. No power, I said aloud to no one in particular. In silence
you rose up and ambled to the baby’s room and bundling him up, carried
him into the living room wrapped in his blanket and sat with him on the sofa.
Kneeling down, I opened the flue and stacked some logs in the fireplace,
pushing rolled up newspaper and tinder underneath. We had enough
firewood to hopefully make it through the remainder of the night.
The flame from my Zippo ripped into the paper igniting the tinder,
licking its way onto the logs and soon was warming the immediate area
around the fireplace, a semi-circle into which we moved, pillows and blankets
forming a makeshift bed, you and the baby huddled together for warmth,
and me. The light from the fire cast sinister shadows, arcing across
your bare arms in which you gently rocked the baby, and as the flames
reflected yellow-orange off your sleepy hair, your beauty struck me
like the cold slap of the Wisconsin winter air. And you lay there asleep
on the hardwood floor, your arm around the baby, me sitting up watching,
and I knew that no matter how hard I tried to extinguish the thought,
the thing that was going to happen next was going to happen next, even if
the power suddenly returned and the living room lights shone brightly
on the two of you curled tightly into yourselves under a blood-red blanket.


Paul Scot August

********************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[miss_american_pie]

1. Very nice

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

4. Thanks

:hi:

RL

[Callalily]

2. What a wonderful

story RL! And I think only someone from Wisconsin can now feel the true meaning of, like the cold slap of the Wisconsin winter air.

[RetroLounge]

5. ...

:hi:

RL

[lizziegrace]

3. Yes

Everyday and ordinary yet extraordinary to the author. I really like this one RL.

You got an early start to your day, or had it not ended yet? :hug:

[RetroLounge]

6. Glad you like it

Woke up at 2:30 and couldn't sleep, so I got up and posted the poem, had a PBJ, surfed for a while, smoked a cigarette, watched my kids sleeping on the livingroom floor, did some writing, had a glass of milk, and finally went back upstairs to sleep at 5am.

:hug:

RL

[lizziegrace]

7. ...

:hug: :hug: :hug:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Good morning, my dear RetroLounge....

Lovely! Very evocative.......

I can feel the cold, both in the room, and inside the man speaking....

The kind of cold that comes from being awake when you need to be asleep...

The jet laggy kind.......where everything is odd and off somehow....

This is terrific!

Thank you, as always........:hug:

[wildhorses]

9. ........

"and I knew that no matter how hard I tried to extinguish the thought,
the thing that was going to happen next was going to happen next..."


and so I wonder... what happens next?

isn't that the mark of a good one...it leaves you wanting more?

very nice RL

solitary, melancholy and yet warm and familial all at once. He is the provider, no matter the century, and he feels the weight of that responsibility. And, ain't it funny how with just the non-flick of a switch he can be thrown back to cavemen days...