They
Two men sat at the table below me
in the stadium seating lecture hall.
One was pale with golden hair
the other brunette with a letter jacket.
We had ten minutes until class
they were looking at a laptop screen.
Talking to each other in hushed voices
I could hear them as I eavesdropped.
“It just doesn't add up.”
one said.
“They’re definitely hiding stuff.”
said the other.
“What about the bodies?”
said the blond.
The girl next to me did not notice
that they were even talking.
The laptop’s screensaver
was a torn American flag.
“It’s because they hate us
that’s why they lie.”
The brunette pulled out his phone
and showed the blond.
He laughed, it must have been a funny picture
“Yeh. The numbers are totally inflated. If it happened.”
The professor walked in
everyone started to prepare for the lecture.
The blond closed the website
about the Holocaust
and class started.
Posted Feb 10, 2018, 2:05 AM UTC · edited
This is...difficult? It reads like an AM radio story. Like NPR or something. I can easily imagine an old man and a foley artist in a studio recording something like this, making up background and adding unique voices for each individual involved. But the trouble is it's doesn't have a pace or a meter or a beat or tempo or anything I can really identify to make it distinctly a work of art. It feels prosaic more than anything else. Maybe that was the intent, but the presentation suggests otherwise. If the intent was not prose, however, I suggest reevaluating the stress on different words throughout this piece. Perhaps start by considering the lines "I could hear them" to "said the blond". In my experience, practical dialogue doesn't perform well artistically.
However, aside my from everything, I want to reinforce the purpose behind this work. I hope that you can channel your voice and turn it into something more powerful.
Thank you. I did write this more as a prose piece. I’m not very good at poetry but I’m in a class so I’m trying to get better