Discarded

[drummondo]

I place her card on the table

And turn to leave.

 

She watches, vile beauty,

As I lose my temper and shoot;

Caskets peppering the window.

She sits behind

Bulletproof

Glass, but she is not untouchable.

Too much emphasis is placed on one word.

Her window is bulletproof, but open.

 

I choose carefully my weapons, and

She weighs each between light breaths;

She says I look anxious.

No. I'm past tense.

 

I'm beyond taut.

I've learned my lessons

And still failed.

You say my cancelling was a disappointment -

Is my leaving a disturbed dis-stress signal?

Consider yourself discarded.

[Wyvern]

Very good poem, drummondo. :-) I love your juxtaposition and combination of "Bulletproof" and "Glass" in the second stanza, and found the use of the open bulletproof window a very intriguing metaphor. I also really liked the phrasing of the last line of the poem, and felt that the word "discarded" was a strong way to close the poem given the way that the narrator discards the card at the beginning.

 

In terms of potential things to improve in this piece: I felt that there were two spots in the poem where the language and phrasing deviated from the excellent modern tone of the rest of the piece. "Vile beauty" and "I choose carefully my weapons, and" both seemed a little off-putting me, and one potential way to improve this might be to find some other way to show that she's beautiful in the first case, and to drop the adverb and the "and" in the second. Also, I didn't understand the meaning behind the phrasing of distress as "dis-stress" in the final stanza.

 

Great stuff. :-) And once again, I love the original metaphor.

[drummondo]

Decent ideas wyv, nice one.

 

I used "Dis-stress" because it was an attempt at wordplay, using "distress" in such a way as to imply an alleviation of stress. Just like I tried to use "dis-carded" to show that I no longer felt strongly enough to justify giving her a card, and "dis-appointment" to show the lack of an appointment being kept.

 

I don't know, I just like "dis" words. Dis is how I work. You dissing? :>