The exercise:
Write about something or someone that is: caught.
Took the entire day off today, and even had a good portion of it to myself as Kat took Max up to Penticton for a get together. Felt fantastic. And also managed to get caught up on a few things around the house.
Still owe like twenty different people emails, but whatever. Progress was made. Focus on the positive.
Mine:
Went out for a swim
In the lake today;
Exploring here and there,
Whiling my time away.
A tasty treat appears
And without a second thought
I take a big old chomp,
And suddenly I'm...
Caught a break at work
With some unexpected time off,
All thanks to my ability
To fake a nasty cough.
I'm fishing on my boat,
Though my line has snagged naught;
I'm thinking I might go hungry,
When suddenly a fish is...
Caught in a whirlpool,
The three of us are spinning:
The boat, the fish, the fisherman,
Not a one of us is winning.
There's no escaping,
We go around and around and around;
We're trapped in a rush of water,
And we're going down, down, down.
3 comments:
A day off sounds nice, I've heard of them. I believe they happen to other people :-P And it is always lovely to have just a couple of hours of quiet time to yourself, with no-one making any demands on you, especially as it makes people's return quite exciting as well.
Your poem feels like it came in a flash of inspiration, it's got that kind of vivid energy and liveliness to it. I'm not completely convinced by the scansion in places (the last verse seems to have a completely different structure to the rest of the poem!) but that doesn't detract from the story or the fun.
Caught
The gentleman on the right-hand side of the waiting room had an open sore on the side of his neck; a vivid red with a little white centre and some mottling at the edges. It appeared to be weeping a clear serum, and I immediately wanted to avoid him.
But on the other side of the waiting room was a family; two mothers, a father and a daughter who looked thoroughly embarassed by her excess of parents. She was coughing when I walked in, and when I looked away from the gentleman she hawked up something green that looked suspiciously lively.
"Oh look, hers are green!" cooed one of the mothers, and then father looked unhappy and started coughing himself.
I tiptoed my way through the waiting room, staying as close to the dead centre as I could. The nurse at the desk looked up as I approached, and slipped a clinical mask over her face. She pushed a button, and a hiss of aerosolised anti-bacterial enveloped me.
"And what have you caught?" she asked me.
That awkward moment when you get caught kissing behind a door by your newly divorced sister. When your parents find you necking in the backseat of their Buick. When you aren’t paying attention to your kids because you are lovingly staring at each other. When I just don’t go to work because we can’t get out of bed in the morning – today was a good day. When he says he loves me with tears in his eyes in between vomiting from chemo. We promised to love each other in sickness and in health, and we made good on that vow for the past 43 years. With a pit in the depths of my being, I am honoring his medical wishes to cease treatments. With every ounce of my whole self, I will love him and I will cherish him whether he is crying in agonizing pain or we are happily laying under blankets in the yard watching the dogs play. I have loved him since we were 12 when I stopped wearing pig tales because a cute boy with a blue cap, cuffed dungarees, and Chuck Taylor sneakers moved onto my street. We married at 22, 4 days after we graduated college. We gave each other 5 children in the following 8 years. We have been caught our whole lives kissing, hugging, loving, and I plan on continuing being caught adoring that cute 12 year old boyfriend with the blue cap, cuffed dungarees, and Chuck Taylors, that 17 year old boy with dark hair and swimmers body, the 22 year old man in choker whites and Ensign bars, the 41 year old father taking his son to the Naval Academy, and my 65 year old best friend who has fought hard for the past 7 years. I am his wife, his best friend, the love of his life, and I will be until I pass – not when he does.
Greg - I highly recommend them :P
I'm impressed you were able to spot the inspiration behind my poem without me saying anything about it. And yes, you're quite right about its issues... I just didn't want to spoil my fun by trying to fix them :)
I feel as though you had far too much fun writing your scene...
Mo - brilliant. So packed full of emotion, it really carries the reader along with you.
Lovely work.
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