Play it again, Sam

The good, naturally the suave hero. Handsome city dweller calling his home a neighborhood teeming with artists, writers, musicians and actors.

The bad, next-door-neighbor-type guy, pock-marked nighttime taxi driver, always misunderstood and too feisty, dreams unsuccessfully of climbing higher from his lower-class social molds and creating his own success story.

The ugly. Neighborhood noise, midnight screaming in dark alleys, the hopes of the city turned into nightmare. But elsewhere, lovers, holding hands, are oblivious to anything but moonlight.

their nightclub kisses
music of gold autumn leaves
play it again, Sam

He, the good, knight in shining armor, saves the ordinary guy’s dazzling princess sister from of becoming a mundane suburban housewife. He offers her flowers and a future. Jealousy bearing the ugly, as her brother drinks too much in the local bar. Why does destiny brood his presence?

on a high bar stool
he hears that familiar song
outside, winter howls

He, the bad, is incapable of wishing her well, of having dreams for anyone but himself. Drunk again, drowning his misery, he swirls around. Pistol shot mars their dreams-come-true marriage, as the ugliness of the city drowns him in irreversible action. He dies calling her name. She, mourning, tottering now between the good and the bad blames her ugly self for only thinking about her own happiness.



Play it again, Sam
(or The Good, The Bad and the Ugly)
[2007.4.9…c]
Written in the Haibun form.