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Saturday, December 8, 2012

Daryl provides prompt for Real Toads

I'm excited because, for this weekend's Sunday mini-challenge for Real Toads, Kerry has chosen a set of store-window photos by New Yorker Daryl Edelstein, probably my favorite big-city photographer, as prompts for our poems.

Daryl has such a great eye for composition, color, humor, pathos...and she's married to a real fun guy known as Toonman, so who could resist a combination like that?

I have some fun men and toon guys in my family, so I think I know whereof I speak. Daryl, you are fabulous! Kerry, you're pretty great, too. LOL

To see how other members and guests of the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads have responded to this prompt, click HERE.


A LOT WORSE
by Kay Davies, 2012

© Daryl Edelstein

the cowboy’s ghost
couldn’t handle the city
the noise and the lights,
the cars and the fights
(not that they didn’t have fights at home,
 but they didn’t have drive-by shootings
 and they didn’t have store-window lootings)
so he parked himself 
in sombrero and bandana
in front of a strange-looking bull
in a window full of hats
where he decided that
© Daryl Edelstein
it could be worse...


all those pretty mannequins
in micro-mini-skirts so short
it took his breath away
just to look at them all day
(not that they didn’t have girls at home,
 but they wore jeans and shirts
 and sombreros and bandanas)

the cowboy’s ghost
© Daryl Edelstein
then guarded the city,
the girls in their windows,
from his window—
oh, there were things he missed
like sawdust on the floors
and hardwood swinging doors
and coyotes singing love songs to the moon
(not that they didn’t have the moon in the city
 but if you blinked fast, you missed it
 through the skyscrapers and the lights)
and the cowboy's ghost decided death could be a lot worse

10 comments:

LLM Calling said...

Wow Kay, amazing poem, I love it and the way it speaks.

Susan said...

Brilliant! I love the understatement in the contrasts, the tongue in cheek playing, the seriousness of the contrasts

Maude Lynn said...

What a marvelous piece! Very original and creative.

Hannah said...

"things he missed
like sawdust on the floors
and hardwood swinging doors
and coyotes singing love songs to the moon"

I love this...these descriptive details drew me right in. Excellent poem, Kay!!

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Fantastic poem - love cowboys singing love songs to the moon.

Lighthousegal said...

Awesome post. Love the poem.

Susie Clevenger said...

This is great!! I guess the cowboy ghost gone urban cowboy decided to just embrace his eternity. :)

Kerry O'Connor said...

Wow! This is excellent, Kay. I love how you found a thread in the pictures, and your cowboy ghost with his ironic asides won my heart.

Fireblossom said...

Good to see that that cowpoke is staying busy in the afterlife! Very imaginative and entertaining take on Daryl's photographs, Kay.

De Jackson said...

EXCELLENT. I love how you wove in all three photos, seamlessly. Such a lulling rhythm to this. I love this cowboy ghost, and wish him well.

de
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