Nickname

[tectak]

.
"Could you just try, as an exercise in self discipline, to decide on poetry verse-form or prose?"

or, as Tom Stoppard spake:
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"Portraying poetry and prose as opposites is illogical (as well as trite).
They are not mutually exclusive, they are not entities; they are but two
of the many attributes of writing."

.....or as Oscar Wilde might have said, shitting and shagging are not opposites, nor are they mutually exclusive....but illadvised at the same time.

---

v. 6 reworked a number of phrases, save for the first and last stanzas

As Buck drives us to practice,
looking for gas money
under the red light,
his license flashes into view.You deserve better from me. Here goes. This stanza SAYS that Buck was driving US (the observer is INCLUDED) to either a place called "practice" or to carry out the function of "practicing". The mid-stanza suggests, due to the comma after "practice", that "looking for money under the red light" is a side issue of no real expressed purpose. Omitting the comma tells us that you were being taken in a vehicle to someplace where you could practice looking for gas money (what is gas money. Petrol money to us brits, I suppose. That's OK) under a red light. Now, because of the lack of clarity created by the structural knot-hole caused by that comma the stanza crumbles into uncertainty. Some may say...good....it leads us on in the quest for more information. Whatever. What is the red-light? outside a whore-house looking for spilt change? Under a set of traffic lights? Why would there be money there? Help is necessary. Will I get it?

Pennsylvania wades across its top,Now I have just happily grasped the flashed view of his (Buck's) driving licence with the connection hanging loosely to the line concerning the enigmatic practice of looking for money under a red light when, holy shemolly, I am in a whole new stanza with a deliberately (by separating the stanzas) disconnected "it's". Why do this? Why split the stanzas? You do not want or need a caesura here. Flaky?
a photograph straddles the left corner
as a scrawl limps in the center; Like this very much. This is good observational writing. The "seeing eye" of the mind snapshot. Excellent.

before we pass the intersection, Though you could easily begin a new sentence here, if you had not broken up the stanza AGAIN, I believe it would stand a full stop after "center" if only to permit for the reader's thinking time (which is precisely what the writer is doing, thinking, that is) before the penny drops
it hits me. The signature
does not match
the six foot owner,

hand on the stick shift,
name conjuring a deer
in a maturing wood.Just forget about the pointless stanza chopping and read the last SENTENCE aloud. I will doit for you. The signature, and I stretch to oblige, does not match the "owner". OK. Not something I have thought of before so good for you. Tell me more. Why or how does it not match? Well, the owner is six feet tall and this is a three-feet six signature. No. That can't be it. It must be the hand on the gear shift. Yep. I guess that could be it . A really big hand, hairy, muscular, firm, solid....yep....OK I like it. The signature was weaker, foppish, flimsier than you would have thought. So we are there. Great. Now to the name itself. Buck. A male deer. Nothing tenuous about this link....at least nothing requiring a conjuring effort. Ah, I see. Not only does it hint at "deer" but it also indicates where the deer was and the condition of the environment. This is a whole new science. The reading of signatures. I know I am being facetious but the point is that the point is....well, overmade.

Read aloud,
it does not even turn a head
as it escapes into the crosswalk
through a cracked window,Lost on me. Got the smaller point. Say "Buck" loudly in a moving car with a partly open window and no one notices. I have been in towns where you could have shot the guy at the wheel and no one would notice.....but your point is? Well, whatever it is it stands alone as you gave it a whole stanza. Enough already on the stanza thing. I will try to extract myself from my own anal orifice and continue

leaving us to ride in silence -
the driver, unchained to the autograph
crammed in his pocket,

the passenger, rubbing his arms
where bonds rattle,
surface, and sink. The last two thingies....oh bollocks....stanzas, are less of a let down than they would have been if the stanza before had not been such a let down. Also, I do not understand them but that is a small issue which I must learn to address.




v. 5 adjusted S. 2, which further adjusted the orderings of other stanzas, though much of the information is the same


nickname

As Buck drives us to practice,
looking for gas money
under the red light,

his license flashes into view.
And there it is
framed in leather;

not the nickname
I have come to identify
with his six foot frame,

the way a flute flutters in his hand.
On that piece of Pennsylvania plastic
sits a first name below a photograph,

and we have never been introduced.
An arm length away,
the ink curves like a contract,

closed and buried in a wallet.
The first name, spoken,
addresses no one in the car,

escaping the silence
we share at the crosswalk -
the driver,

unchained to the likeness
crammed in his pocket,
and a passenger,

rubbing his arms
where bonds rattle,
surface, and sink.




V. 4 attempting to address enjambment issues/ cohesion. new line breaks.




As Buck drives us to practice,
looking for gas money
under the red light,

his license flashes into view.
The scrawl below the photograph
on that piece of Pennsylvania plastic

curves in ink like a contract
closed and buried in a wallet.
The first name

no longer captures his six foot frame,
the way a flute flutters in his hand.
Spoken, it addresses no one in the car,

escaping the silence
we share at the crosswalk -
the driver,

unchained to the likeness
crammed in his pocket,
and a passenger,

rubbing his arms
where bonds rattle,
surface, and sink.







V. 3 cut down on many of the images

nickname

As Buck drives us to practice,
my thoughts turn to the signature
bound to his license.

On that piece of Pennsylvania
plastic, another identity curves
in ink like a contract

left in a closed and buried
wallet. The first name
no longer captures

his six foot frame, the way
a flute flutters in his hand.
Saying it aloud

addresses no one in the car;
it only escapes
in the silence shared by driver,

unchained to the likeness
crammed in his pocket,
and passenger,

rubbing his arms
where bonds rattle,
surface, and sink.


V. 2
removed S. 1
added "his first" to new S. 1
penultimate stanza: switched "unscathed" to "unchained"

nickname

Perhaps his first name
could not capture how his full,
six foot five physique

could navigate the channels
of a silver plated flute.
So when Buck drives me to his concert,

my thoughts turn to the signature
bound to his license.
Another identity curves

in ink like a contract
left in a closed
and buried wallet, forgotten.

His wrists, unchained
to the likeness
stashed in his pocket,

draw me to my arms
where bonds rattle,
surface and sink.




V. 1

At some point,
"Frank" no longer fit
his six foot frame.

Perhaps the name
could not capture his size,
the glasses, circled

around his nose, or how his breath
navigates a silver plated flute.

So when Buck
drives me to a concert,
my thoughts turn to the signature

bound to his license,
where another identity
curves in ink like a contract

left on a table in a locked
and buried room, forgotten.

His wrists, unscathed
above a steering wheel,
draw me to my arms

where bonds rattle,
surface and sink.

Hi Phil. I only commented on the early version because this is what I would have said if I had not been pickled in malt whisky beside a steaming loch in the land of my Mothers , Scotland.

I thought I had mellowed but find I have not.
If anything, coarser through whiskies I've got.