Each of these images work with the idea of death. The title itself “Closing Time” is an image of death. The bar is closing up for the night; the day has ended, died, and the bar must close, die, for the evening. The narrator is trying to “sleep,” another form of death. The heart is also the “only quiet / thing in the house” (14-15). Normally, quiet hearts are hearts that have stopped beating and are dead. Also, when something is quiet, it is asleep, dead, or absent. The narrator’s heart has given up on the lover. This image shows that the lover’s love for the narrator is dead. Also, the narrator’s faith or hope in the lover’s return is dead. Again, the end placement of the narrator’s saga of the heart is appropriate. By being placed at the end of the poem, the speaker’s hope dies just at the poem ends or dies. The lack of punctuation allows this death to continue forever.
The images of death are very prominent in “Closing Time.” These images are sharpened by the noise of the bar and the speaker’s loneliness and attempt at sleep. By using these images, Everette Maddox creates a very strongly symbolic and powerful poem.
Many of Everette Maddox's poems may be found at The Poetry Of Everette Maddox.
Works Cited:
Maddox, Everette. “Closing Time.” American Waste. New Orleans: Portals Press, 1993. 48.
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