Uncertainty

[Erthona]

Uncertainty

Excuse me,
          sorry to bother you.
                    I'd never do this otherwise, but

my car is parked down the block
          near the hotel down the street.
                    The past two hours, I've been looking for help

circling this parking garage.
          The last guy told me "Go to hell."
                     I don't understand why he'd be so cruel. (this line appears disingenuous, unless it is a female talking and there are other hints throughout the poem that would suggest this is not the case)

You see me here—I'm wearing casual clothes,  ("You see me here" this seems unnecessarily awkward, besides being overtly melodramatic, not to mention trite. "casual clothes"?)
          I'm well-spoken,
                     I'm not some bum.  (Is there some reason for using "some" instead of "a"?)

I don't need directions.
          I know my way there. (Your way where, or is this supposed to be a noticeable discrepancy?)
                     I just need fourteen dollars for parking.

It's forty total, but I have cash for the rest. (that's some expensive parking, is this where the reader is suppose to get suspicious?)
          I'm just fourteen dollars short and
                     I left my credit cards in my wallet back home.

I'm from out of town, a few hours north actually.
          I'm a substitute at the university.
                      I'm a professor, I teach computer science.

I have my ID
           if you want to see it, and my cellphone, but there's
                      no one for me to call that lives in town.

My mom passed away a few weeks ago
           and I'm having a rough time.
                       I drove hours to get here and I've been trying (Ah, another contradiction to the story. A few hours goes to hours as in many)


to find someone who'll lend me a hand. (Somehow this seems a bit too literal here,or was it suppose to recall a panhandlers phrase, "buddy could you loan me a hand"?)
           I already asked the front desk at the hotel and
                      they can't help me.

I promise this isn't some ploy.
            I just want to get home to my wife. (Ah ha, I thought you needed it for parking!)
                       All I need is fourteen dollars. (However why make such a big fuss to write a big poem about someone trying to get fourteen whole dollars. People drop that as nothing for coffee and a sweet.) 

It was difficult throughout the poem to define what was simply poor writing and writing that was meant to be poor as it related to the monologue.
 
At the end of the poem I felt completely ambivalent. Why go to so much trouble to write a poem about an imaginary character that no one will care about. If no one cares about the character either for or against, then they have no investment in the outcome. Even if it were written in a more clever way, it still would not matter. The best outcome to hope for is to briefly arouse curiosity about what is going on, but as that question will not be answered, that is a fleeting connection. This is not like "Young Goodman Brown" by Hawthorn, where even though the ending is left ambiguous, the story itself opens up serious questions about the double sided nature of Puritan society, it is not just a mystery left unsolved.
That this does not examine the idea of prejudice of appearance, but instead treats the well spoken and well dressed person just the same as the street bum just the same, misses any hope of making any kind of social commentary that might same it from itself.


Dale