Monday February 23rd, 2009

The exercise:

Today's starter: life in a fishbowl.

I had originally intended for mine to be a tribute to our betta fish, who died over the weekend. But then it turned into something else entirely and I just went with it.

We'd had our fish nearly three years - considering that bettas, on average, live about three years and the ones you buy in store are usually already a year old, I think he did alright for himself. I don't have a picture of him but he looked a whole lot like this.

Mine:

My life is measured
By the circumference of this bowl;
I wish I'd treasured
My time in the ocean patrol;
Those days of leisure
The net oh so callously stole.

The days pass slowly,
The view now unchanging and stale;
My work so lowly,
Skin once bright now sullen and pale;
By all that's holy,
Swear I'll flee this cubicle jail.

3 comments:

Greg said...

That's a pretty fish, and I like the way that your poem reveals its metaphor at the end. I haven't yet been to cubicle hell, but I can sympathize a little!

I'd not heard of Soul Coughing, but having googled them, I find they split up in 2000 which might explain how I missed them. They sound interesting though!

By the way, on the fish theme, if you read Get Fuzzy then last week was all about a dead fish...
here and there's about five comics on the theme.

So finally, Life in a fishbowl:

There's a tap-tap-tapping on the glass
Every time someone walks past.
And every time I do my little routine
I flit about, happy to be seen.
But this is all I do, day in, day out,
Something makes me wonder, makes me doubt,
Is this apogee really my life's goal?
Living in this fishbowl?

Marc said...

Haha, Get Fuzzy is brilliant stuff. I must add that to my comic reading list so I don't forget about it again.

I like how you managed to get inside the fish's head with yours. You gotta wonder just what they're really thinking sometimes...

Unknown said...

Ah, I'm so sorry to hear about your fish. I had a betta fish once, a few years back. Mister Fish lived one year with me, which is like a century in fish years for me (points to self: fish-killer). Seriously, I once had like five fish die on me. Out of nowhere. So Mister Fish was an anomaly.