29 Comments
User's avatar
Mark L's avatar

Thats Brutally Honest

Expand full comment
House of Neglected Poetry's avatar

Wow, Weston! Dropping poetic depth like it's hot! keep'em coming...

Expand full comment
House of Neglected Poetry's avatar

Also, love this line, "While crime paid well, it did not exceed my debts which have come due."

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

That's what comes of my one year working in a bank as a collections and repo guy.

Expand full comment
House of Neglected Poetry's avatar

lol come and get it!

Expand full comment
Armand Beede's avatar

Weston Parker: Hmm.

This may be about the best summary I have yet seen.

VERY GOOD!

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Thank you.

Expand full comment
Dr. Deborah Hall's avatar

at least

at least i was known

before i died

you strangers reading this

you know me too

i hear you

say goodbye

wish you had

said hello

Expand full comment
Carole Roseland's avatar

Nicely crafted with words shaped in a form like they just came off the lathe! Thanks for that!

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Carole, thank you for the thoughtful words and for subscribing. Can you recommend some of your poems to me that I might like?

Expand full comment
Carole Roseland's avatar

Well, related to your poem, but not taking the jail route as you did, but rather leaving it up in the air, as it may be, you could try out “Acid Reign” and its follow-up, “Acid Reign Returns.” I hope you read some of the earlier ones, though. “A Good Word” and “Good Ground” I’d recommend. Thanks for reading!

Expand full comment
Jessica Rath's avatar

It takes a lot of courage to talk with a voice like this one -- made me realize that I've avoided it at all costs, or thought it was impossible. Thank you for making me ponder...

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Well, I had a bad brother from earliest childhood until I was 18 years old as a reason to find this voice. I would gladly give up the voice but we are what we are and the cards are dealt and we must play the ones we are given.

Expand full comment
Jessica Rath's avatar

I meant this as a compliment; I was thinking of Jung's "shadow", something we ALL have but try not to face. Relating this to the miserable creep who tries to be president again, I have many very dark, very unexamined thoughts. Sorry you had a bad brother. Must have been hell, as a kid.

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

I took it as one so thanks for that. That miserable creep reminds of another, much more dangerous and influential creep who assumed power in 1933. That’s probably why we hate this modern one so very much.

Expand full comment
26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

"I would have liked

a third act

but there are

few things so final

as curtain fall." !!!

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

any ideas?

Expand full comment
26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

The "!!!" was an ineloquent comment, sorry! They meant to say: those are my favorite lines of a poem that has a lot of good lines.

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Thank you so much. I really do appreciate your thoughts. In that last line I was trying to invisibly create a hanging, I just wondered if that ever came through.

Expand full comment
26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

Definitely you evoke an abrupt and final ending. I think those lines in the context of the poem do making the hanging real.

If there was a way to use the word "drop" instead of "fall" it would be super-clear ... but that messes with your theatre metaphor, which I like, and besides the word Drop is just not as euphonious as Fall.

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

While we're on this poem, what was your understanding of lines 2 and 3?

Expand full comment
26thAvenuePoet (Elizabeth)'s avatar

My understanding comes from a scene I've seen in movies more than once: the prisoner being read/preached to in the moments before his execution, and then the warden comes in to take over from the chaplain. Your lines paint that whole picture for me in just a few words.

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Yep, I had those thoughts running around and I had to stick with fall- couldn't stray too far from theatre cause I love drama!

Expand full comment
Patris's avatar

Regrets are rarely so eloquently spoken. So good, Wes

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Do you remember that poignant line in "My Way"?

"Regrets, I've had a few"

Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Thanks Patris

Expand full comment
David Angel's avatar

Even though I voted Democrat for over 40 years until 2016, I’ll take a bastard who doesn’t get us into World War III over a senile, incompetent and corrupt Biden any day, and I believe the principled stand is to ask yourself and determine whether Bragg’s case is legally legitimate, not whether it gets the guy who lives inside your brain rent free.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
May 31, 2024
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Weston Parker's avatar

Yes, it really is an extraordinary day.

Expand full comment