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a girl's voice bleeds

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Dave
Posts: 1991
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:07 am

a girl's voice bleeds

Post by Dave » Mon Oct 31, 2022 12:26 pm

A girl's scream bleeds fear into the street,

once, twice
a third time,
she yells.

Heavy steps emerge
from a point far off right
draw into focus as they near
and recede towards silence off left.

Other voices, follow along the house fronts,
urgent, hateful and scared, strangely lonely,
seek blood, as if it had an answer to a puzzle.

Below my window lamp light pools
the houses and trees into yellow blooms.
A police car blocks the road, its doors
open, its blue light, bounces on car bonnets
and faces - two boys, stood still, arms dropped
to their sides, bravado made compliant.

When asked, they nod and whisper, their words
become details and evidence, a history of sorts,
half-known half shaped, half remembered.

Five minutes later they are all gone,
as is their noise, their muscular poise
their latent violence, all absorbed by daylight.
 

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Mark
Posts: 586
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 4:19 am

Re: a girl's voice bleeds

Post by Mark » Mon Oct 31, 2022 4:03 pm

A dynamic narrative with actual action going on, nice work. Feels like it could go through 2 or 3 more drafts before settling. Of course, all I want to do is get the rest of the line-ends stepped neatly.

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