15 Comments
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Kurt Stein's avatar

🔥 🔥 🔥 bro

“the air behind my body” is so beautiful

Ian Cattanach's avatar

Haha, that's an awesome line from James Wright, "The Jewel," that's been in my head for a decade, and I finally got to use it. He used it to describe an internal state, but I tried to use it in another poem with coyotes running, and it didn't work.

Kurt Stein's avatar

ok so we both have really good taste 👯 but you put it to work! let’s gooo

Kurt Stein's avatar

amen. looking forward to taking notes on you bro, desert orpheus or bigfoot erotica, whichever comes first

Mark Blair's avatar

Nice poem! I can imagine those peacocks, lurking. Vegas is so inspiring.

Angelic Assembly's avatar

thank you for poem... quite different...

John Royce's avatar

Nice, Ian! Evocative of a desert at night, seeing the glow of the city. The feeling of an outsider.

No idea if that's exactly what you meant, I'm not so good with poetry, but it gave me an image and feeling :)

Beeeg C's avatar

Peacocks hidden …. = knowledge? Beauty?

Daniel V. Gaglio's avatar

From the coast to the desert to the mountains—no matter where you go you can still hear the Suzukis racing

Ricardo Guzman Jr's avatar

Poor coyotes. You turned me on to Coyote America.

Green lights have me thinking of The Great Gatsby and Matthew McConaughey.

Martin Garcia's avatar

Ian! what a powerful first stanza, " high noon / a stack of dead coyotes" like, wow, what an image, and the rest of the poem flowed nicely. I've only been to Vegas once but you invoking the name brought me to the desert. Thanks!

Luis Angel Ortega's avatar

The last part was what it really sold to me the scene, specially the "I can hear suzukis racing". That detail, that it may be out of place somewhere else, completed the poem for me. Great piece!

Colby A. Stout's avatar

There is such a distinct texture to this: gritty, neon, and haunted all at once. You really nailed the Vegas valley atmosphere.

The line "wildly the coyotes / ran away from / the air behind my body" resonated deep within me. It feels like Deftones meets desert air.

Clay Page's avatar

"staring at green lights across the valley" moved me.

Wil Price's avatar

This one left an impression. I feel haunted by peacocks. Thank you!