Poem:The Author as Man Who Stares Out His Window with the Others as John Rooney and His Men are Gunned Down in the Street in Road to Perdition
Poet: Keith Montesano
Magazine: The Collagist
Site: http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/2012/9/9/the-author-as-man-who-stares-out-his-window-with-the-others.html
Blogger: R. Romero
This poem is interesting to me because the poem is spoken through a narrator and the narrator describes what they see, which is based off a movie. The title of this poem tells you exactly what was going to happen and be said. I found the usage of the scene from a movie to be an interesting subject matter that the narrator focuses on to get to the point that everything people see, they might not always understand. The subject of curiosity or not understanding something shows the deeper meaning that Keith Montesano was trying to portray.
The narrator describes a scene where men are being shot in an alley that is between two buildings. In these two buildings families look out their windows to witness this shooting and no one does anything other than watch. I found this interesting that no one freaked out, called police, or anything. There was no sign of panic. The way the poem is written by using commas, makes this poem fast pace and gives the reader as sense that everything happened to quickly to understand. This ties to the end where the narrator says how everyone understood little of what they saw. Linking the style, grammar and scene of how the narrator speaks gives the sense of everything happening to fast and that people do not always comprehend the things that happen in front of them.
This poem begins by saying how “we” can get what we want if we wait, but waiting only turns into getting what we do not deserve. I think this message in the first two lines is meant to set up the movie that is going to be used. John Rooney in the Road to Perdition is mob enforcer who seeks for revenge on the person who killed his family. This makes more sense once I looked it up because the scene in the alley is meant to be John Rooney who is seeking revenge. I believe the movie is supposed to be an example that follows the deeper meaning that is presented in the first two sentences and tied up in the end with not understanding what you see.