Madge - revised

[Wildcard]

Hi Dale,

It is good to read you again! As you know, I will have no revelations for you but I wanted to give a little of my reactions.

I did not read the original or the comments so sorry if I make a fool of myself

Hot! Oil seeps out of the asphalt road
and cars make a sticky noise as they pass by
sounding like fat people sex on a hot night. --I happen to giggle every time I read that line. I, too thought that this was clever and a good choice
At the bus stop is a woman with
tumbleweed blown straw-blond hair, --I stumble here, but not from misunderstanding, but just the double 'bl'-- it seems very ungainly to me-- 'tumbleweed' needs to go, I think . . . doesn't straw do enough on its own to sell the wind-blown look?
lips painted like a freshly cut pink neon fig,
and deep crevices carved in pasty skin --deep crevices make me think of leather skin, not pale, pasty skin
from years of negligent living.

She reminds me of the Palmolive
dish-wash soap manicurist, --Who? I disconnect here
so I'm thinking her name might be
Madge...Not a name you hear much now.
That was from a time when if you were cool
you rolled your Lucky's up in the sleeve --hehe James Dean comes to mind, nice picture you make me imagine here
of your tight white cotton shirt,
wielded a Zippo like a samurai sword, --my uncle was like a ninja with his lighter so I know what you mean. When women want a cigarette lit they don't have to wait long in tough guy country
and lit two, one for you and one for her.

She has that look like she's done a year --getting gritty now. When I started reading I was lead to think flatteringly of this woman but now . . . reminds me of the song Meet Virginia where he says all these weird things about the girl but still wants her
or two in what they call jail these days.
Nothing like the jail on the
Andy Griffith Show where
Otis, the town drunk, slept it off
then let himself out the next morning. --I watched the show a lot but I still feel this part is largely throw-away
No one was letting Madge out
through those double vault doors
after her last bender, when she
smashed her fender into that street light. --and again, I don't feel anything added by this

She's obviously on the way to work;
wearing the ubiquitous medium-dark
brown knit knee length dress that serves
as the standard uniform
for servitors in such places
as the occupational cleaning industry
and chain cafeterias like Luby's where they
monotonously repeat their zombie phrases
a thousand times a day,

“hep ya”, “moe tea”, and “cum’gin” * --are you doing Texan? In DEEP south it would be 'wot kin I git ya?', "y'on't s'mo'e tea?" and no matter where you go, cum'gin just looks perverted :p

while serving their purgatory on earth,
but it's hard for a felon to get a job these days.

I can see through the heat distortion
swirling up from the earth
acting as a convection oven,
that she's firing up a cigarette,
and I wonder how someone like her
can afford to smoke, when a pack cost
the equivalent of two hours of work.
Well, I guess you just find a way
when it is a matter of life and death!

Winding down I am a little befuddled by it all. You certainly have a way of making me want to get into this world and see more but I feel closed out-- whether by my own limitations or yours, I don't know.

Thanks for sharing