Monday March 15th, 2010

The exercise:

I'm going to be doing a lot of training at work this week so let me just apologize in advance for the grumpy, angry, writing therapy junk I'll be posting this week. Having said that, I'm sure it won't be that bad. I'm just covering my bases ahead of time :)

And though my writing today was inspired by my first training session this morning, it really wasn't that bad. I suppose.

Your prompt today: misplaced focus.

Mine:

This training session
Is really messing
With my head.

'Cause you want to know
What it all has to do with you,
And so do you and you and you.

But y'all really need to learn
The definition of the word
Overview.

4 comments:

g2 (la pianista irlandesa) said...

Heh, sounds like the mindset of many of my classmates... or rather what a majority of their mindsets have been. Since January.
- - - - -
While my mind's on physics,
their's are on freedom.

Mine's preoccupied with precalculus,
their's calculate the remaining days.

I'm thinking Spanish,
and they're thinking summer.

I'm willing to shove on with the rest of the year,
but they're wanting to shove out into the world.

Sure, I'm ready for next year,
but can't we wrestle with the present first?
- - - - -
Early-decision knowledge and senioritis do crazy things to many late-adolescent minds.

Greg said...

@g2: Yeah, I remember that year too. I was lucky though, people who are just waiting to leave don't turn up in the difficult classes, which were all the interesting ones, so I wasn't much affected by them :) Good poem too!

@Marc: Be as grumpy as you like :) Although, if you've got a decent trainer for some of the days it shouldn't be too bad. I've yet to see anyone not wanting to be in one of my training sessions after the first five minutes, I just have to be willing to find their wavelength and sympathise.
I like the poem, it's short enough to really snap its sentiment out there, and the last line reads as a punchline. Very nicely done.

Misplaced focus

Laser light:
Organised photons that march
In serried rows,
Disciplined and even,
Unbelievably bright,
And burning a hole
In exactly the wrong wall.
One misplaced focus,
That's all.
They'll never renew my grant.

summerfield said...

this story is half true and half fiction.

misplaced focus

Gregory eyes the redhead in the second row, trying to remember where he had seen her before. When his eyes catch hers, she makes a rather inconspicuous wave and pouts her shiny pink lips, suppressing a smile. Definitely not last night, he assures himself. But where?

For a moment he shifts his eyes towards the crowd, a sea of people with perflexed looks in their faces. He imagines question marks above their heads just like in some Sunday cartoons. Then he hears a buzzing sound, a collective hushed wonderment that spewed out of the people's mouth.

He looks again at the redhead who this time smiles sweetly at him. He smiles back. And that is when he hears Priscilla’s cries. He turns to look at her, leering at him through her white veil. The priest asks him, “Gregory, are you with us?”

Priscilla gathers the enormous skirt of her wedding gown, throws her bouquet of white calla lilies at him, and runs towards the church door. “Son of a bitch, you bastard!” she screams as she runs. “You had to bring her here.”

Something heavy and angry hit his head. Marco, Priscilla’s brother. Suddenly he is looking at the murals in the ceiling, a collage of angels and humans in pastel colors. People are now screaming.

Then it dawns on him: the one night stand in Barcelona. But as he realizes this, Marco’s large and heavy foot comes crashing on his head.

summerfield

Marc said...

g2 - ah, I recall those days. Jeez, did I ever have no idea what I was getting into, haha.

Greg - well, the trainer today was pretty decent. But it sounds like I'll have a different one on Friday.

Your poem made me smile. I liked the 'exactly the wrong wall' line :)

Summerfield - oh my goodness, I'm not sure I want to know which half is truth and which is fiction!

Very well told and created regardless though :)