This is my workshop piece. I took a lot of the comments into consideration. Thanks!
Draft 2: (10/25/2010)
In a Vegas Denney’s Thinking About My Lost Child, 1985
Looking out the window fogged with
scorched hash browns and hard coffee
the waitress aborts the flashing cowboy hats,
panty hosed sluts, and snapping impersonators
to the sands.
Here, in Denney’s, her chipped nails hold the past’s glasses
once filled with single malts and plastic ice until 5AM,
hands tinkering the ice, playing roulette and shooting craps,
and she hears the ancient roots of the desert call for another round-on
the house.
Draft 3 (11/13/2010)
Inside the Denney's she looks out the window fogged with
scorched hash browns and hard coffee.
Thinking of floor 37, Room 2 when she
put bubbles in the champagne glass hot tub,
she lays a bent fork next to smudged spoons.
Taking out the soured towel, she wipes
that away, leaving the faint smell of bleach
and breast milk.
Out there the Vegas palms abort the flashing cowboy hats
where panty hosed whores strut.
The greats shoot craps and
drink single malts with plastic ice till 5AM.
The blades of newness slap
the salty, sweet, hard felt.
Clapping hands curl to embrace the feeling
of loss that surrounds the pyramids and
we all count plastic hardships in unison.
Water in the desert jolts to life tipsy roots
calling for another round-on the house.
Back inside, the waitress leaves
the check-all wrong and honest- getting
change for all she’s worth out here.
Draft 3 is quite excellent and it shows that this late in the process for you. You might want to consider how form and line endings are now helping the structure of the whole draft, and maybe a little creative erasure will help add to meaning.
ReplyDeleteInside the Denney's she looks out the window
fogged with scorched hash browns and hard
coffee. Thinking of floor 37, Room 2 and bubbles
she put in the champagne glass hot tub. Laying
a bent fork next to smudged spoons. Taking
out the soured towel, she wipes that away,
leaving the faint smell of bleach and breast milk.
Out there the Vegas palms abort the flashing
cowboy hats where panty hosed whores strut.
The greats shoot craps and drink single
malts with plastic ice till 5AM. The blades
of newness slapthe salty, sweet, hard felt.
Clapping hands curl to embrace the loneliness
that surrounds the pyramids and we all count
plastic hardships in unison. Water in the desert jolts to life tipsy roots calling for another round-on the house. Back inside, the waitress
leaves the check-all wrong and honest-
getting change for all she’s worth out here.
Of course this is not doing much with your work, but the endings seem to provide another story now. Could you use this as a means for creative erasure and a another draft, if you need one. I would not stray far, this is a very good piece of work, very thought provoking.
sorry looking this over there needs to be a break after desert I think.
ReplyDeleteWhile I might be considered a dengerate gambler, I almost would like to see more gambling imagery in the second stanzas. I've been around the crap game that ran all night and you see many things. The waitress walking around the drinks, the "heater" that some guy wearing a shirt from Nebraska or the people that are hoping the hard ways hit (this is when you make like a 8, but it has to be 4/4 on the dice), which is hard to do. There is so much emotion that could be added to the desperate situation when the final shooter craps out and the energy drains from the table. Just a few things to think about, but this draft looks pretty good.
ReplyDeleteRachel,
ReplyDeleteI think you've done a great job of revealing the empty feeling of the speaker, even as she's surrounded by all the flash and plastic. I especially like the last three lines. Now, here are my suggestions, for whatever they're worth:
1. If you plan to keep this working title, you could probably leave out the first three words.
2. You might consider changing the "she" to "I" and see if you think the draft seems more centered in emotion that way, if it risks more sentimentality.
3. Reconsider the line breaks, especially for the lines that end with "with" and "and."
4. Maybe combine "The blades of newness slap / the salty, sweet, hard felt" into one line. The length of this line would then mirror the length of the first line in the stanza, and highlight the words "cowboy hats" and "felt" in each of the two lines. What happens if those words play against each other?
5. Could the "Clapping hands curl around the feeling" instead of embracing? Would that mean the same thing, generate the same image?
6. The title includes the year "1985." Could you work some event from 1985 into the architecture of the draft? Or maybe some event from another year? Here's a website you may find helpful: http://www.infoplease.com/year/1985.html
7. In the phrase "she wipes / that away " in the first stanza, it's not clear to me what the "that" refers to. Is she trying to wipe away the memory of the room with the champagne glass hot tub? Maybe just substituting "that memory" would work.
8. What do you think about including some simile after "the feeling of loss that surrounds the pyramids." ? As in "the feeling of loss that surrounds the pyramids like black smoke from burning poker chips." (Or something fresher. I'm just thinking about how smoke from a plastic fire seems to have substance, and is so very black.)
I hope any of that helps.
I agree with Chris' post here. Your earlier draft(s) were a lot more about Vegas itself, yet most of us found the waitress to be the most intriguing image. This latest draft has told us quite a bit more about her, but I'm concerned that you may have lost the 'rough edges' produced by the gritty description of Vegas in previous drafts. I think that a great way to describe Vegas without describing Vegas is to find a way in with some imagery of gambling, fantastic shows, etc.
ReplyDeleteNow that we've learned more about the waitress, I'd again like to know more about Vegas.
Great job on this! I really like it.