The exercise:
Write a four line poem about: the return.
My four most recent lines in the yearlong poem are below. I'll post the full thing so far in the comments.
Mine:
As it rumbled down the hall past his bedroom.
Somehow the child did not scream.
Buddy paused, waved farewell, then returned to its
Life as a killing machine.
4 comments:
Okay, here we go:
Unit 78-B-2M-60
(Better known as Big Buddy)
Served its master very long and very well
(Though sometimes things got bloody...)
* * *
The Master was sipping his morning coffee
(Which Big Buddy had just brewed)
When he suddenly decided his rivals'
Lives all needed to conclude
Big Buddy had no concerns or objections
When given the list of names.
In fact, his only question was simply: In
Which order should they be maimed?
The order matters not to me, loyal friend -
Proceed however makes sense.
Though to avoid drawing notice, the first to go
Should look like accidents...
So Big Buddy chose a name quite randomly,
A certain Wilson D. Fox,
Then rolled from the mansion, the tools of its trade
Carried in an unmarked box
Big Buddy spied Mr. Fox at his local
Gym, where he was lifting weights.
While he was so preoccupied Big Buddy
Found his car and cut the brakes.
The accident was, frankly, magnificent,
The death count right off the charts,
Though Big Buddy only stuck around so that
It could harvest the spare parts.
The Master watched the news report with concern -
My list did not call for this!
But Big Buddy had gone dark - he had no way
To stop the rest of the hits.
The robot trundled on to its next target,
Unfailing in its duty;
Second up: Francesca Suarez, a lady
Most oft describe as snooty.
Francesca was at a tres fancy party,
Sipping tea from a gold cup,
When the waiter arrived with a fresh teapot
Which ten - zut! - tout de suite blew up.
It was a bigger blast than Buddy had planned
(The house was now a crater)
So it decided it was a fine time to
Head south of the equator.
Not like those in search of beaches or culture,
Buddy wanted something more.
So it tracked down who was next: Jose Loor, a
Resident of Ecuador.
Jose lived in an isolated beach hut,
The air full of sun and... salt.
Which, when combined with the wind-blown sand, caused poor
Buddy to grind to a... halt.
A local family found the stuck robot
But were unsure what to do,
So they brought it home in their red wheelbarrow
And inspected it for clues.
They cleaned it carefully but a stray dust brush
Stroke knocked its tracking chip loose.
Back home The Master swore, feeling like he was
Being fitted for a noose.
It was nearly three weeks later when Buddy
Awoke in the dark of night
To discover its parts were moving once more,
And gave the child quite a fright
As it rumbled down the hall past his bedroom.
Somehow the child did not scream.
Buddy paused, waved farewell, then returned to its
Life as a killing machine.
This is very good -- I hope you were pleased when you saw it all written out like this! Despite each verse being put together a week apart I think you're keeping up a strong consistency with the narrative and the behaviour of the characters, and I feel like you're starting to develop Buddy more now as not just a killing machine. Criticism-wise I'd say that when it's all put together like this it's easier to spot where the rhythm changes from one verse to another, and while you've not done it much there are a couple of places where you could go back and smooth it out (if you wanted to).
Is this now the longest poem you've written?
The return
Six men row hard to this new land and beach
Where narrow sand meets glassy rock. They drag
The boat above the tide-line, return,
And with some shock find steps - man-made - that lead
[And on the note of prompts such as 'The miraculous escape of Samual' -- how did you know I have a story about a mouse called Samual who has a miraculous escape that I wanted to tell? 'A last second rescue' would definitely take me back to the story of the man trapped in a time loop with a little girl who walks into a bank and announces she has a bomb.]
Greg - yeah, the rhythm changes jumped out at me as well. But overall I'm pleased with how it's gone so far, considering the absolute week to week winging it that's going on :)
Um, I'm going to assume that I've never written anything longer than this.
Ah, another cliffhanger. I look forward to maybe catching up and seeing where you go with this at some point in the some what near future.
Also: yeah, I know there's no winning with you on the prompts, so I'm not going to bother to try :P
Post a Comment