commentary

The piece came about while thinking of two books I reread recently - The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, and A Moveable Feast by Hemingway. I tried to work with this tension, the feeling of nothing coming out right, of being trapped in a vapid boring existence but still searching for that elusive blue fifth note of jazz, of life itself. And of course, I thought of Paris because everyone thinks of Paris when they think of love and rain. Or maybe not. At the poem's end, logic and routine take over, everything will become crystal clear and distant and that last word for me was a kind of echoing doubt that everything will fall into place.



Kyle Hemmings lives and works and dies in increments in New Jersey.