The exercise:
Write something that is either about or takes place on: the street corner.
Ah, the last day of February. It can never come too soon.
There are signs of lettuce, thyme, onions, and leeks in the greenhouse already. It is a good time of year.
Mine:
Red light, green light,
Traffic comes and goes;
Over cracked concrete
This human river flows.
Food carts, false hearts,
Everything's for sale;
Suits, dresses, blue jeans,
Each soul has their own tale.
With glee I see
Greetings and goodbyes,
Taking it all in
With binocular eyes.
4 comments:
It's St. David's day here already :) Which means that two months of the year have already slipped by, which seems slightly surprising. I swear time adjusts its rate when people aren't looking.
I like the jaunty rhythm of your poem, and the slightly irreverant way it tells its tale. I feel like the street corner itself is doing the observing and commenting. That said, your last line doesn't work with my pronunciation of binocular (bi-NOC-u-lar) and BI-no-CU-lar sounds weird but gets the iambs right :) It's still a great poem.
On the street corner
Thursday, 7pm. Corner of Rose Road, where it intersects with Crown Street: "Drive-by shooting." A mother complained that another mother pushed her stroller past at high speed while the child in the stroller threw peanuts at the child in her stroller.
Sunday, 8:15pm. Corner of Rose and Crown again: "Soliciting." A seven year old girl was found standing on the corner asking passers-by if they wanted to be her daddy.
Monday, 6:42 pm. Corner of Rose and Crown again. Does no-one do this stuff on other street corners? "Grand Theft, Auto." An angry mother with too few teeth complained that her son had had his toy car stolen by a passer-by. CCTV footage shows him throwing the car voluntarily into the back of a flat-bed truck.
Thurday, 10:04pm. Corner of Rose and Crown (of course). "Loitering with intent." A woman with a triple-wide push-chair complained that a man was loitering with intent and making lewd suggestions. The man was elderly, having trouble walking, and was reciting his shopping list under his breath.
Friday, 7:08pm. Corner of Rose and Crown. "Breach of the peace." Elderly lady complained of the noise at the corner, describing it as 'ungodly screaming'. It was the beeping of the crossing-signal. I give up. I've arrested the crossing signal and put it in the cells downstairs. I hope it rots there.
Greg - I am quite convinced time adjusts itself as it sees fit whenever we're too preoccupied to notice.
Haha, love the individual entries here, as well as the increasing exasperation of the poor fellow tasked with recording them.
I liked this one, but couldn't think of anything earlier... and I'm excited about the next Mejaran bit, so... yeah.
If we're keeping continuity, this happens two or three years before the February stuff.
- - - - - - - - -
Ignoring all the odd looks he was getting---not an entirely new phenomenon for his sort, and for him in particular---Shotek settled on a barrel at the corner of this side of the village. Behind his left shoulder, he could see down to the river, and just across it sat another village, exactly like the one on this side of the river. Odd.
"Oy." He turned back around. A lanky gent---not much younger than Shotek---and the tallest woman he had ever seen approached him. They didn't look hostile, but something about this gent seemed slippery, and this woman could've picked him up by the head and tossed him in the river, as easily as he could've hurled a small rock from the same place.
"Can we help you with something?" the young man asked.
Shotek grinned and turned out his hands affably. "My friend, for myself I haven't a want in the world." He rummaged in his pocket, at which his company tensed slightly. But they leaned in a little when he pulled out his deck of cards, the four-suited one. "But, I would like to show you something, if I may."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Were you near the square at all this morning?" Vanara asked. Divana shook her head. "The oddest-looking chap tumbled into town. Yarel and Orsana found him, and he did this magnificent card trick."
"Anybody can do card tricks."
"Not like this one! He was telling this story, shuffling all the while, and the cards just lined up with it!"
Divana smiled a little. "Sounds exciting."
Vanara paused her peeling and scowled at Divana playfully. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Can't say I entirely do, really."
"Tell you what. Go find him tomorrow. Shouldn't be too hard, he's the only face you wouldn't recognize."
- - - - - - - - - -
fun fact: I've been doing a ton of thinking for this particular chunk of Mejaran we've gotten going. It might spiral into something (once I get time to spiral with things like this).
g2 - excellent bit of back story here. Very much enjoyed it.
And I am excited for potential spirals :D
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