The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Thu 10/12/06)

[RetroLounge]

Fast Gas

----for Richard

Before the days of self service,
when you never had to pump your own gas,
I was the one who did it for you, the girl
who stepped out at the sound of a bell
with a blue rag in my hand, my hair pulled back
in a straight, unlovely ponytail.
This was before automatic shut-offs
and vapor seals, and once, while filling a tank,
I hit a bubble of trapped air and the gas
backed up, came arcing out of the hole
in a bright gold wave and soaked me--face, breasts,
belly and legs. And I had to hurry
back to the booth, the small employee bathroom
with the broken lock, to change my uniform,
peel the gas-soaked cloth from my skin
and wash myself in the sink.
Light-headed, scrubbed raw, I felt
pure and amazed--the way the amber gas
glazed my flesh, the searing,
subterranean pain of it, how my skin
shimmered and ached, glowed
like rainbowed oil on the pavement.
I was twenty. In a few weeks I would fall,
for the first time, in love, that man waiting
patiently in my future like a red leaf
on the sidewalk, the kind of beauty
that asks to be noticed. How was I to know
it would begin this way: every cell of my body
burning with a dangerous beauty, the air around me
a nimbus of light that would carry me
through the days, how when he found me,
weeks later, he would find me like that,
an ordinary woman who could rise
in flame, all he would have to do
is come close and touch me.

Dorianne Laux

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

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. Laux again?

I sense a recurring theme.

[RetroLounge]

2. Everytime I read another of her poems

I want to kiss someone...



RL

[miss_american_pie]

3. Maybe you should stop reading her poems

or find yourself someone to kiss.

[RetroLounge]

4. Or better yet, read them out loud to the one

I wish to be kissing...

Then kiss her.



RL

[miss_american_pie]

5. Yeah, you can't go around just kissing people

better read the poem first.

So I hear.

[RetroLounge]

6. I've been pretty fortunate that I like kissing

and have had a knack for finding good kissers who like to kiss me back.

Been reading the poems a lot to myself lately, unfortunately.

RL

[miss_american_pie]

8. Maybe

you should run an ad in the personals.

[RetroLounge]

9. Graigslist Pittsburgh perhaps?

RL

[miss_american_pie]

11. If you're coming here

forget the ad. Hang out in Schenley park. No shortage of cute young things there.

[RetroLounge]

12. Not interested in cute young things...

instead more interested in a certain cute young thing.

besides, my probabtion officer won't let me hang in parks anymore...



RL

[miss_american_pie]

13. But he'll let you cross state lines?

[RetroLounge]

14. Some things are on a "need to know" basis...

For example, I need to know what you are wearing right now...



RL

[miss_american_pie]

16. You may need to know

but the rest of the lounge doesn't.

[RetroLounge]

17. Well, then you better take it to PM

and send a photo too, just so I can be sure of what to dream about (again) tonight...



RL

[miss_american_pie]

19. Oh I'll send you a PM

You have to work a little harder for photos.

[RetroLounge]

21. Don't say "Little" and "Harder" in the same sentence

You'll give me a complex...



RL

[wildhorses]

7. I love this line:

a nimbus of light that would carry me


where can I get one?

[RetroLounge]

10. ...

RL

[sweetheart]

15. fast petrol

remember when you had to pay upfront to pump fuel?
I was the one who took the money efficiently and enabled the pump.
You came back in to get change, and i didn't look at your sunglasses,
whispering prayers to be well as you leave unphased on your way.

I sit behind thick bulletproof glass, and we were
robbed 4 times last month. I'm the fat dark haired one that's
about 23 pounds overweight. I'm trying to lose the weight,
but i i'm addicted to the fast food next door for lunch.

Sometimes i come to work stoned, 'cuz its so boring,
just being a nobody slave for a million people in
sunglasses, processing payments, like a drug dealer for speed.

[RetroLounge]

18. ...

RL

[wildhorses]

20. that is some good shit there, sweetheart!!