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:
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?
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...
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.
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