The exercise:
Today I signed a contract extension that will see me through to the end of April. Hopefully I'll get extended again beyond that but we'll see how things go.
Either way, the prompt du jour is: the contract. Random note about mine - after writing the first two lines on my morning break at work I didn't write the rest until lunch. During that time I considered at least five different directions I could have gone with it.
Mine:
If you will just sign here
You will receive your gear;
If you initial there
We'll throw in a free prayer!
We'll send you on your way,
To fight in fields of gray;
Please try to do your best
To rid us of those pests.
Revered poetically,
You'll die heroically.
Like that load of Blarney?
Then you'll love the Army.
Well done on the contract extension! Somehow your poem makes joining the army a little like joining an elite gardening corps ("Weevils? Go get 'em lads! Take no prisoners, accept no surrender, those roses must grow!"), but it made me smile. Which, sadly, mine is unlikely to do.
ReplyDeleteThe contract
Your face was ringed in my morning paper,
A time was written below;
A highlighted story on another page
Told me where I would go.
We had a rendezvous.
The sky was grey and crying for you,
The wind plucked the leaves from the trees.
You were wearing a mac, black and dirtied,
That flapped noisily in the breeze.
You waited for me at the fountain.
At the tower room window I took out my pen
And signed on the dotted line.
The contract was made, another life ended.
The bullet in your head was mine.
Two hundred people watched you die; no-one came to help.
Haha, Weevils. Now I want to make up some Gardening Recruitment posters.
ReplyDeleteI like yours muchly. Very chilling. We don't have to smile everyday, but we can never forget our smiles.
That's my deep thought of the day. Or week. Perhaps month. Likely year.