PEAS & DOPE

The following piece is a result of ReadWritePoem’s prompt #84, brought to us from the fantastical mind of Buckeye State poet, Nathan Moore (not to be confused with the Virginian songwriter, Nathan Moore). I can’t explain the prompt in complete detail here, other to say that it involves using a dictionary, and that it was great fun.



PEAS & DOPE

Remember when Tim aimed his peashooter
from the veranda at Sally with her D cups
sunbathing in the yard and launched?

We scattered like a post-traumatic waterfall,
twelve rug rats through the arborvitae
where her father, the self-made senior controller

of his Masonic village, stood from his poker game –
a royal flush at that – and whipped each of us
for castigating the one beautiful thing

his sperm ever made. Remember how the slash
burned the backs of our thighs? Bent over chairs
as the old man sang Yankee Doodle Dandy, we cried

Daddy whenever his belt cracked and belched.
Years later, after an unwarranted search
and seizure put me away for a long weekend,

the sheriff sized up my dreadlocks, said us hippies
had no clue about pain. So I dropped my pants,
let my scars correct him.


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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 18th, 2009 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Creative, off a prompt, poetry. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

22 Responses to “PEAS & DOPE”

  1. July 20th, 2009 at 11:32 pm wayne says:

    WOW………………..GREAT

  2. July 21st, 2009 at 12:15 am Dave Jarecki says:

    Thanks Wayne – always appreciate hearing from you.

    Dave

  3. July 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm Kristen says:

    Wow. Tremendous use of images. Love the final line. Always in awe, Mr. Jarecki.

  4. July 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 am sb says:

    I envy your ability to use images like this to tell a story.

  5. July 23rd, 2009 at 5:17 am Deb says:

    Whoa. The device is entirely invisible, leaving only amazing images.

  6. July 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am rallentanda says:

    I like a poem with a story,imagery,machine gun delivery and
    brevity.Yes!

  7. July 23rd, 2009 at 8:49 am rallentanda says:

    I like a poem with imagery,a story,machine gun delivery and brevity.Yes!

  8. July 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 am Nathan says:

    You can really turn a phrase, Dave. I mean “post-traumatic waterfall?” That’s golden. Great work.

  9. July 23rd, 2009 at 1:17 pm Mark says:

    This is wonderful…makes me either want to hang up my pen or work harder.

  10. July 23rd, 2009 at 4:22 pm Lawrence Gladeview says:

    dave quite a harrowing tale of adolescence! oh the days of spying on the the gem of the neighborhood, waiting to see if our dicks moved before hurling an insult or water ballon as a misdirected attempt to snag her attention, all because we were in love. excellent language throughout culminating in a strong conclusion. enjoyed this plenty. -lawrence

  11. July 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm gautami tripathy says:

    Great story in such a short poem!

    Wonderful..

    love dances from a to z

  12. July 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm Dave Jarecki says:

    How right you are, Lawrence. The whole poem really got underway with “peashooter,” the lovely phallic instrument that it is.

  13. July 23rd, 2009 at 5:04 pm carolee says:

    there’s a sense of bravado in this that i like — it begins with the (sort of) bragging in the first stanza and even though the narrator’s in a more vulnerable position in the last stanza, the “showing off” — of scars in the end — continues.

  14. July 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 pm Dave Jarecki says:

    Thanks Carolee – a little bravado and plenty of misguided angst toward authority.

  15. July 23rd, 2009 at 11:46 pm Dave Jarecki says:

    Thanks Guatami.

  16. July 24th, 2009 at 12:40 am Dave says:

    Thanks for a great read.

  17. July 24th, 2009 at 1:59 am angie says:

    thanks for making me get out the dictionary again. I must be sheltered because I have never heard of a pea-shooter. Unwarranted search and seizure, on the other hand…

    love the way you slam truth into the ending.

  18. July 25th, 2009 at 3:34 am Dana says:

    Dave, how did I not comment on this already? I read it aloud to Jon, and we were all, “Oh, that’s so great.” I can’t believe I didn’t leave a comment to that effect.

  19. July 26th, 2009 at 12:22 am Dave Jarecki says:

    Thanks Dana – I need to get around to reading all the poems. There are a lot of good ones this week. Prompt-driven.

  20. July 26th, 2009 at 3:30 pm Erin says:

    This is so smart and funny. You had me at “the one beautiful thing his sperm ever made.”

  21. July 27th, 2009 at 4:48 am Dave Jarecki says:

    Thanks Bird – glad you’re digging the poetry (including your own)

  22. July 27th, 2009 at 4:51 am Dave Jarecki says:

    Thanks Sharon – appreciate your thoughts.

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