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Bright Light, Some City
“It’s probably a reflection of my own, if I may say,
loneliness. I don’t know. It could be the whole
human condition.”
— Edward Hopper on “Morning Sun”
Why does it matter that the sun has seemed
to seek her out as she awakes above
the morning rush that pushes out slipped dreams
that fog her rising while there’s still no love?
Now looking out the glass, she wonders if
those outside feel the same, despite if they
arose as two: their bodies, sheets, and breath
together though they live like shadow plays.
And still within a crowd the sentiments
won’t differ much amongst the shifting mass,
and she, above it all, tries making sense
of what a good life is, and then it flashed—
She thinks, “I should be satisfied the rays
still warm this aging body, that the view
provides a worn delight, and I can pray
that pain will pass, as will these cresting blues.”
But will it pass despite a wish to chance
for more from now? She wills to force a change
of personality as her eyes glance
beyond the noise that makes her life mundane.
“No matter what’s before me, I’m enriched
by my imaginative lambency,
accustomed to the urban droning pitch
that ripples softly in this towered sea.”
For mourning should not be confused with morning,
she settles her pink nightgown on the sheet
and leans ahead to paint a world with yearning
that someone might feel like her on the street.
.
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Christopher Fried lives in Richmond, VA and works as an ocean shipping logistics analyst. His poetry collection All Aboard the Timesphere was published in 2013 by Kelsay Books. His novel Whole Lot of Hullabaloo: A Twenty-First Century Campus Phantasmagoria was published in 2020. Recently, he was an advisor on the 1980s science fiction film documentary In Search of Tomorrow (2022). His recent poetry has been published in Shot Glass Journal, Snakeskin, and Sparks of Calliope.
Thank you, Christopher. A sensitive and imaginative exploration in words of a striking visual image.
There are some strong images here and I like the inexact rhymes. I have trouble with “despite if” (“even if”?), and the last two lines I can’t parse, though I get the sense.
I bought your “Timesphere” ages ago, enjoyed it, particularly “Royal Sepulcher, Bare as Bones” and “Afternoon CSX Coal Crossing”, and others.
Some choice phrases here, like “amongst the shifting mass ” (where the sound of the last word chanced to remind me of Gray’s “far from the madding crowd”; could this woman be wishing to avoid connection?); and “the urban droning pitch”–another way of expressing Percy’s “ravening particles”?
Thanks for a distinctive poem.
I really like the way your imagination made a story of the thoughts that could very well be going through this painted woman’s mind as she sits above a city and gazes out the window. The title itself is very clever, as it doesn’t matter (in either the painting or the poem) which city is the setting; both the city and the figure are clearly meant to be anonymous, and your poem keeps it that way. “slipped dreams”; “live like shadow plays”; “the urban droning pitch that ripples softly in this towered sea” are very insightful phrases.
Cynthia, thanks for your specific remarks!
Plangent, if nothing else. Self-obsession is not an admirable quality.
C.B., I agree that self-obsession is not a good quality and often leads to further disconnection with others.
Hopper is a great artist. It’s a pity he lived too late to inspire great poetry among his contemporaries. You, I think, do him justice, and the poem reminds me very much of his style: clear and unadorned, yet classically crafted.
I think you do a good job of capturing the sentiment of this painting – loneliness amid a crowded city, and portray for us a fleeting glimpse of the mindset of one in the subject’s situation. I very much enjoyed this work.
Thanks for your enjoyment, Adam!
An important element in this poem is the use of /-ing/ words, either present participles or nouns with an /-ing/ ending. Examples: morning, rising, looking, making, aging, cresting, droning, mourning, yearning.
Thanks Joseph for the observation! I think that it gives a “tired” effect from the subject, not just from the preceding waking, but a tiredness from her current pattern of living.