Liquids You Can't Buy In Shops - Writers Forum

European_Son · 01-31-2005, 08:13 PM

[disc:c389247ea4]Contains malevolence, violence[/disc:c389247ea4]

In a rundown room on the fourth floor of a
nondescript anonymous apartment block
Deep in the east of town where the rats and
the people live together in a filthy disharmony,
I flicked the light switch and with it
Her grotesque performance begins.

Watched by half a dozen or more nervous invited eyes
This frankly odd smorgasbord of characters
were unsure what to expect as invitation is rare,
mythical status attached to such happenings,
Whispered rumours of depraved acts of madness,
Sex and death and art and insanity intertwined.
But this? This is darker than those mere urban fables.
The witnesses can't avert their gaze, yet,
Disturbed distress is evident in their eyes,
Disgust and lust mixed with mistrust and
Liquids you can't buy in shops,
Flow.

The faces of the audience turned a shade
of dirty giallo yellow, their eyes twitching,
filthy thoughts flooding their feeble minds.
A few of them were looking uncomfortable.
Did they not appreciate the display?
Eyes wide, she stared at them,
blankly, they stare
back.

Her act, her display, her show continued,
"Writhe, contort your body", a pale
ugly, gaunt, pock-marked middle aged male said.
Immediately, without hesitation,
I smashed him over the head
with my cane, and I demanded silence.
When he cried out in pain,
a carefully placed kick to the face shut him up.
He bled pitifully on my floor, so I beckoned
an associate who dragged the limp body out of the room.
A sharp suited man tried to stand up,
perhaps escape was on his mind?
My cane swung dangerously close to his face
and he sat back down, muttering,
sweating like the abhorrent swine he was.
He knew the score now.
They all knew.
And for a minute or two
they all
froze.

The girl continued her vividly vulgar display,
and I took the time to recline against the wall,
keeping a keen eye on a fat fidgety man who
was stirring in his seat, staring, licking his
unctuous lips, like a greasy gruesome wolf awaiting the lamb.
Aesthetically he turned my stomach like a bile-filled churn,
A bloated bulbous belly hung out over foul soiled jeans,
The bulging mass of fat stretching his ill-fitting shirt.
The strain of the weight he carried gave the impression
that he was ready to explode. I wanted to pop him,
and in my pocket my finger glided over the concealed blade,
my twitching fingers urging my mind to have some fun.
After some brief consideration, I decided against this-
my previous altercation had already made our audience nervous,
and I didn't want to risk an attempted mass exodus,
which would only result in a lengthy clean up job
and the hassle of messy evidence,
although...

I continued to watch him, and he continued to watch her.
His eyes were glazed over and he didn't once blink,
he kept his eyes fixed on the girl at all times,
his sight scanning up and down her tender soft flesh.
It sickened me that somehow this wretched pervert,
this vile excuse for a man had been invited to our event.
Such mistakes in the guest list would never be made again.
Never.

I soon realised this disgraceful specimen of a man
was bad for business and he was not welcome at our happening.
I could sense that his close proximity to the girl was disorientating her,
She was beginning to look uncertain and ill at ease
and there was no way I could let such a foul beast
upset our beautiful sweet delicious divine goddess of an asset.
He clearly lacked the basic manners needed to attend our event,
and I was going to make him pay for it, I would have my pound of flesh.
I watched, waiting, wishing he would make the mistake I wanted and
Then it happened. The catalyst. The excuse I was looking for all along.
Deviously, as if he thought he could get away with it if his actions were slow and gradual enough, his hands began to creep towards the direction of the
girl.

No. Not today, nor ever would those filthy hands touch her radiant silky skin.
I paced across the room towards him, focused and definite,
and before he had a chance to sully her with that touch,
I pulled the long smooth blade out of my pocket
and dexterously sank it into his neck from the side,
sending cascades of warm blood pumping
out of the narrow wound and down his torso,
soaking his clothes with a rich red claret.
This sight alone was satisfying,
but in the excitement I needed more.
He meekly attempted to scream,
but I soon put him down
with a knee to the stomach
a smash of cane to the head
and a heavily weighed punch.
He sank with a thud to the floor, bleeding profusely,
his eyes giving me that definitive gaze that signalled
that his time was nearing an end and with this
it was time to draw curtains on the
show.

The few remaining members of the audience panicked at this colourful sight,
and they tried desperately to escape, screaming hopeless pleas and cries,
their legs urging them to the doors, which they found to be locked.
Upon the order, my associates began to joyfully pick them off one by one
in an excitable flurry of punches and kicks and pistol whips,
sending them crashing to the ground in sorry heaps,
where they lay in horror as my associates began to pour
gasoline on every conceivable space of wall, door and floor.
In the chaos I calmly took the girl by the hand,
and I escorted her through the only unlocked
door out onto the fire escape, where I told her to wait for me.
She nodded and curtsied politely, a gesture that make me
smile.

I re-entered the rooms
to the smell of petroleum and the sight of writhing bodies,
an associate passing me an expensive looking cigarette lighter on the way in.
The associates then left the room and ran out onto the fire escape,
where they moved swiftly down the series of metal steps onto a side street
ready to start our parked car, from where they would await my return.
Meanwhile, my mischievous eyes briefly swept over the room,
dark and malevolent,
my fingers snapping at the flint of the lighter,
the fires that purge now ablaze in my hand,
the audience had seen too much and
now they would be
cleansed.

Throwing the lighter into the center of the room,
and slamming and locking the door shut behind me,
I bowed and whispered,
"adieu".

Druid · 01-31-2005, 09:32 PM

A very narrative and lenghty work. I think it was impressive for the poet, but the theme outwits my taste. I chose to reply because of your effort which has produced a gruesome display of cruel and perverse actions. Your piece was disturbing. I can't get past the images to produce anything remotely obscure in place of a more moral meaning.

Filth breeds filth breeds death breeds filth? Interesting. You really got an image across (at the cost of my morals).

Where's Nae and her happiness when you need her? Heh.

Good job

European_Son · 02-01-2005, 12:17 AM

I didn't really intend to put across a moral message, I'd say this particular piece is to be taken at an aesthetic/imagery level and swirled about in the minds eye like a colourful wine and then swallowed quickly before the taste hits you. Of course, people can infer any meaning they want to it, and I've found it interesting how differently some people have interpreted this, attaching their own thoughts and experiences to the ideas and coming out with their own conclusions.

I finished 'Liquids' last night after sporadically writing it over the last three months, it feels like it marks a new stage in my writing. I am young but I'm definately learning.

Druid · 02-01-2005, 07:00 AM

It definitely shows. I am trying to just find where I stand in poetry, as to not confuse my readers with ramblings that only make sense to me. I'm working on revisioning some older stuff while trying some new. I won't post it until I know 100% what I'm saying so to not rush work more than would be liked.

Oh yes, images I found in your poem! It was very good, longer poems like yours always make me end up wanting to read Whitman poems.

02-01-2005, 01:14 PM

very "A Clockwork Orange"

i suggest re-writing this piece in short-story form. dig into it, the grotesqueness, the feelings of the characters, how they look, what they smell like, the dirt under their fingernails.

someone once told me "don't tell your reader, show them"

i think that is a challenge that you are up for at this point.

ms vodka

salvothasock · 02-01-2005, 11:57 PM

cool,
just a suggestion, for 'bleeding profusely' which is good, but everyone uses that line, be as descriptive as possible, i would expand on simple things like that, i could dissect it and tell you how i would like it, but what good is that, but this was fun to read, so, bravo young sir

European_Son · 02-03-2005, 02:09 AM

Ooh, I am seriously considering writing it in a short story form, and going deeper with the description and the ideas, although my main problem would be writing dialogue. Quite frankly, I can't write realistic dialogue, and I find it breaks up my writing too much anyway, so if I do re-write it in prose, there will be an emphasis on the main characters thoughts and feelings, rather than talking and dialogue, much like this original piece.

And as for 'bleeding profusely', it is a bit generic, isn't it? Hmmm... I'll try and think of a better term.

Thanks for the feedback x

bluewhite · 02-03-2005, 01:14 PM

Good job. I like it.

Pawn · 02-03-2005, 04:05 PM

It would make a far better short story than a poem. Be clear about what you want to do. If you don't want to suggest anything beyond the visual, then really go to town on description, to the extent of telling everything visually. In this piece, I didn't know what you were trying to tell me, or what excuse you had for the meaningless plot.

European_Son · 03-07-2005, 04:45 PM

I'm not going to make a habit of this, but...

bump

n 1: a lump on the body caused by a blow 2: something that bulges out or is protuberant or projects from a form [syn: bulge, hump, gibbosity, gibbousness, jut, prominence, protuberance, protrusion, extrusion, excrescence] 3: an impact (as from a collision); "the bump threw him off the bicycle" [syn: blow] v 1: knock against with force or violence; "My car bumped into the tree" [syn: knock] 2: come upon, as if by accident; meet with; "We find this idea in Plato"; "I happened upon the most wonderful bakery not very far from here"; "She chanced upon an interesting book in the bookstore the other day" [syn: find, happen, chance, encounter] 3: dance erotically or dance with the pelvis thrust forward; "bump and grind" 4: assign to a lower position; reduce in rank; "She was demoted because she always speaks up"; "He was broken down to Sargeant" [syn: demote, relegate, break, kick downstairs] [ant: promote] 5: remove or force from a position of dwelling previously occupied; "The new employee dislodged her by moving into her office space" [syn: dislodge, displace]

Any new ideas, opinions, suggestions before I attempt to rewrite this?

chelseafagan · 03-07-2005, 05:01 PM

This was kind of impenetrable for me, my focus jumped around, but I think the imagery was amazing. I think it just needs some tweaking.

MariusBonaparte · 03-08-2005, 07:30 AM

Yep, this one definitely needs to be a short story rather than a poem. You could embellish so much more without the restrictions of verse in a case like this.

Very interesting imagery.