Thursday May 27th, 2010

The exercise:

Your prompt today: empty words.

Too much talking at work, not enough progress being made. Other than that, it was a pretty good day. I am pooped though. Weekend, I await you most eagerly.

Mine:

it's hard
not to notice
the echo
when you speak

it's as though
you're a bard
forever trapped
in a cave

and though i'm wrapped
up in your glow
i still see
your hollow
hollow
soul

4 comments:

Heather said...

What can I say? Writing is my down time after the kids, husband, and dogs are tuckered out and tucked in their beds. Do you have a better recommendation of what I could do with my time?

----------

"Hello my love," he said as he kissed my neck. I responded in kind. Mere rhetoric, I thought as he crossed the kitchen. Without taking my eyes off the knife sawing through the bread, I chastised myself for feeling too afraid to speak and tell him that I knew.

Love, he'd said. Love had left when he told me he was going to be late coming home and then promptly picked up his briefcase and escorted the new secretary to her warm bed not two days ago. I knew because I was sitting in the parking lot ready to surprise him when they walked past and climbed into her car. I clenched the handle of the knife a little tighter.

I didn't hear him walk up behind me before I felt the same tongue that delivered those hollow words follow the curve of my ear lobe. "Make love to me." His breath fell into the scoop of my neck. It use to tickle, but now it enraged. I turned sharply and he fell into my arms, the knife ripping through his heart and the deep red of his love staining the two of us forever.

Greg said...

Ah, I can agree with you about too much talking and too little progress. I had a productive hour-long meeting in Harrogate, followed by a two hour meeting about possible projects for which no budget has been even tentatively agreed. That was a little pointless.

@Heather: Your last line really makes your piece, the deep red of his love is perfect.

@Marc: The shape of your poem is a beautiful mirror of its content; the short, sparse lines really drive home the feeling of emptiness there.

Empty words

Hokum,
Mere rhetoric,
Empty words, taking up space
On my precious paper,
Taking up time
I could use to hear
Things so much more important.

Still you prate,
Meaningless babble,
Less informed than
An uneducated child,
And yet bizarrely proud
Of yourself, like a dog
Who's not yet housetrained.

Ah, your mouth has closed
And your empty words,
Falling on deaf ears,
Are relegated at last to
The bottom of the league.
It's my turn now.

"I do."

-------

(It's not a polemic against marriage, but I needed a punchline of some kind!)

morganna said...

My first thought:
You speak to me
I hear you
Your words mean nothing
Echoing in my head
There is no meaning
I reply -- emptiness meeting emptiness
Are we conversing?

My second thought (based on Buddhism):
we do not exist
to realize it moves past suffering
past happiness and compassion
i (empty, non-existing i) see the world
create the world, and through seeing
the world creates me.

Heather -- I liked yours, although I could see the end coming as soon as her hand clenched on the knife (but his love spilling across them was a nice touch).

Good punchline, Greg, although I would prefer one not against marriage. :)

Marc, I liked yours. And, hope you like this: http://lizbethsgarden.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/dragon-land-ii/

Actually, I keep adding more at this pace because you are so interested -- it would probably be going a lot slower if you weren't telling me how much you like each new bit. :)

Marc said...

Heather - I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that no, I can't think of anything better :)

I also love that final line, but I really like the tickle -> enraged comparison that came right before it.

Greg - hokum is also a great word. You're on a roll!

And I appreciate the need for a good punchline, even if this one does hit a little close to home :P

Morganna - oh, I like both of yours very, very much. Particularly the 'emptiness meeting emptiness' line in the first and the final line of the second.

And if encouraging you to write more is all I have to do to get more dragon story, consider me signed up and ready to go :D