The exercise:
Write about: the hydra.
Feeling much better today. Even managed to get in to town for the first time since Wednesday. And it seems as though both Kat and Max have dodged the various illnesses that have been floating around here lately.
I consider that to be easily the best news of all right now.
Only one day left in 2012! How will you spend it?
Mine:
The mighty Hydra,
A beast most feared,
Is not quite as scary
As he (they?) first appears (appear?).
Sure there are many heads
With which he (they?) can bite,
But not a single one
Can agree on dinner tonight.
2 comments:
I feel like I've been working non-stop the whole of 2012, so I'm trying to spend it as quietly as possible. We're out over to a friends for the evening: drinks, nibbles and good company, which will be nice, but otherwise my plans are to write a little, read a little, and make a chili con carne for tomorrow!
Glad Kat and Max have proved tougher than you when it comes to getting ill! :-P
I like your poem, and the indecision implied by the parenthesized choice of personal pronoun, but i did find it a little hard to read. Perhaps the poem could have been longer and addressed the identity confusion within itself differently?
The hydra
"The Hydra are the natives of Hydrus VII, the only inhabitable planet that orbits the star that we catalogued as HR2013. The natives have a name for the star that sounds like radio-hiss, and I won't insult them by attempting to reproduce it here. They arrived at Earth about four months ago... yes?"
A hand had shot up in the audience.
"Um, Martin Horrard, ma'am. Are these aliens the greys?"
"No, the Hydra look nothing like the so-called greys. In fact, with their multiple arms and feeding appendages located at their ends, they more closely resemble the Lernean Hydra of myth. Yes?"
"Ah, Janey Smith, ma'am. The Hydra abducted me and probed me a month ago."
"No, no they didn't. The Hydra have no space-travel of their own, they hitch-hike to their destination. I shall more about how disturbing that revelation is at the end of my lecture. They also know nothing about human anatomy and keep forgetting which of our ends is up. Yes?"
"The Hydra ate my hamster!"
"Well, while I doubt that that is true specifically of your hamster, it is true that the Hydra prefer a diet of small mammals and make clothing out of the hides that this leaves behind. Now, if I may continue with my lecture...?"
Greg - your New Year's Eve sounds absolutely lovely!
I can see what you mean about the reading difficulty of mine. I don't think I was fully up to the challenge I'd posed myself at the time... perhaps I'll get back to it sometime.
I fear that fine lecture is being wasted on those students of yours :P
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