Tux 29

The rented tux was number twenty-nine
It had been cleaned and pressed with care
This would be the best prom ever
All the tuxes would be there

Two prom tickets and a padded wallet
They now filled the left coat pocket
Every nickel every cent
Months of savings will finally be spent

The tux slid into the bucket seats
Of a waxed and polished car
Popped in some music
Romance from a rock star

The car arrived at her house
Just in time to see
The pretty blue formal - his date
With tux twenty-three

The car sped off into the night
In an vain attempt to flee
On and off the road
Nearly hitting a tree

The engine finally stopped
On a high and windy hill
When something broke deep inside
Tux twenty-nine's will

Bitterly fighting the wind
With a lapel salty with tears
Tux twenty-nine stood shivering
Facing all its fears

Cold steel was pulled from a pocket
And held to the sky in regret
Then something plunged cold and deep
Into the tux's vest

The tux shook and fell silent
As the rain began to fall
A spirit not that of the tux
Wasted into the squall

No longer so pressed, so clean, so fine
There is a large red stain on tux twenty-nine

*******************************************

Saying that I was in a bad place when I wrote this, would be an overstatement. It had a lot more to do with listening to songs like Close My Eyes Forever and trying to be dark and angst-y than any actual emotional issues I was facing. Granted, I was the guy whose mom died in High School; so in some sick way, I felt this poem (and others that I will not subject you to) was somehow an expected part of the role I was playing.

Looking back, I find that my tolerance for this type of poetry has dropped dramatically ... even if the subject matter was better and it had little things like punctuation. I expect that I'm not the only one out there that found that I could churn out iambic pentameter at a prolific rate. The fact that much of the music lyrics I was listening too were in the same A-B-C-B structure probably lent to the style as well. Although I was horribly mistaken, I believed that any girl would fall at my feet if I could write depressing songs.... Too bad I only played drums.

This bit of drivel was reworked into a 2-part piece called "Red: A Profane and Holy Sonnet" that contrasted the last 4 stanzas with a parallel of the same poem recounting the crucifixion from the perspective of the roman that held the spear of destiny...

No longer so hard, so clean, so fine
There are large red stains on these hands of mine

"Red" became part of an anthology of sorts when I decided to move beyond faux suicide epics and deal with real emotions. I read through some drafts of "Green" and "Black" the other night while I was looking for Tux Twenty-Nine. They tried to express how I reflected my mood in the sights of my real and imagined surroundings; so they were much more abstract ... not one girl swooned over those. "Purple" on the other hand, changed my life - more on that next time.