[Philip Quinlan]

This poem is a bit of a puzzler.

The only sense I can make of the title is that it is the name of a town (probably one of several) in the U.S.

I was trying to acclimatise myself to the idea of a beard being endowed with parables and cigarettes (I failed) when I realised that what the first two lines (as a consequence of the lack of punctuation) actually mean is that "morning ash" is so endowed. Stumped then.

The rest of this appears to make even less sense.

I googled "Bloomfield Station" and what do you know? there is one in New Jersey. But that didn't help any.

To have chosen this, Wendy must have got it. So I'm assuming there is some U.S. code in here that a humble Englishman couldn't hope to decipher.

But coats can't describe and rain can't knit. I know this. Illogical ideas, but not startling enough to count as truly surreal in an unsettling or disturbing way.

I look forward to Wendy's elucidation and comments.

No idea who might have written this (unless someone like Allen T, who sometimes comes in from left field...)

Getting ready to kick myself in due course...

P

[R. Nemo Hill]

This is a marvel to me. As for some of the apparent lack of logic to the description, I can only say that the impression I got was that of gazing in reverie at an everyday scene in an everyday place (Bloomfield = Everytown) through a veil of some sorts: a wet windshield perhaps, on a gray morning; or maybe eyes still full of sleep during a morning commute. The paint-by-numbers postcard has been dipped in something viscous and melancholy that makes the colors and the sharp edges of reality run together. As such, it paints a mood with words, rather than talks a picture.

Such an approach might prove too dense in large doses, but sized like this I think it works perfectly.

Nemo

[Tim Murphy]

It left me cold. I'm sure that its difficulties can be puzzled out, but it doesn't motivate me to make the effort. Perhaps Wendy can educate me.

[Carol Taylor]

Maybe it wants a reader who assumes that obscurity equals profundity. The problem with this poem is that it is four lines too long. The writer should have stopped with the two excellent descriptive lines, 1 and 3, and left the conclusions to the reader. If Bloomfield Station ever cracks beneath my boots the last thing I'll worry about is a new rain-knitted suit.

Next?

Carol