The exercise:
Write about: the puddle.
Got a bit overambitious with what I thought I could get done before lunch today and ended up rushing around rather unnecessarily. Took things more slowly this afternoon and felt a lot better about things.
Now to enjoy four days off.
Mine:
On the floor
Is a muddle
Of a puddle
Of a mess
Of the dress
That you wore,
That you swore
Would never touch my floor -
But all that changed
Once I got you through my door.
I offer you a beer
But you say you gotta jet
And you're full of regret
But I bet,
Despite all you say
Now that it's day,
I'll see you here
Once again my dear
Whenever you need
A nice, warm body near.
3 comments:
This looks like two posts again, sorry
Puddle
Gentlemen, time please, you know we can't serve any more
The arsonist ran, but that wasn't surprising. I've known bus-drivers get out of the bus and run when they see me approaching the bus-stop with the intention of getting on, and catching a taxi these days involves me hijacking it with a gun and then paying for it at the end of the ride. Monkeybutt hates it, and the complaints she gets from the drivers, but she's made her peace with it. Everyone needs to get around the city and she doesn't want me driving, using the metro, or even breathing her air and polluting it. But he ran, and kept running, and my lungs are the like the after-picture for tuberculosis warnings so I wheezed and ran and coughed and half-choked, but I mostly kept up. Until he ran into the Hacienda, a three-storey bar in the heart of the City, and I lost him in the crowd of traders, wide-boys and their camp-followers. The lights were too bright, the smells too clean and the laughter too loud. I know when something's just a cover-up for the rot beneath and this place was all cover, and not enough of it up. I ordered a cigar, which the barman was kind enough to pass me instead of throwing at me, and I retired back outside into the night and the rain and comforting caress of the cold North wind, lit up my cigar, and waited. Until the barman called time.
It was like a strange repeat of earlier in the evening: the stream of humanity coming through the brightly lit doors. The Hacienda has a single entrance/exit, which is in sheer violation of the City's fire-code and shows how much protection they purchase from Monkeybutt each month. Umbrellas go up with the same aggression; the men shrug off the rain at first, but when no-one's looking they run for shelter, cursing with every puddle they splash through. And there, in the middle of a group of drunk kids who think that maths will make them too rich to have to worry about the monthly credit-card bills, is the shadow from earlier. He thinks I'm gone and he's not looking hard enough, so he strolls off as though the rain doesn't bother him and I follow, shuffling along like a homeless person.
Now the traffic lights turn to stop when there's nothing to go. He's moved rapidly out of the heart of the City and into the edges where the suburbs butt up against it. We're walking past the Moonwake Crematorium, the City's answer to a lack of space for graveyards if you listen to Monkeybutt, and the City's answer to taking the evidence with you when you go if you listen to Mad Frankie. I know who's got my ear. There's no traffic but the traffic lights are getting in the practice anyway. He turns down another lane, tree-shrouded and traffic-humped. He's not heading to the suburbs after all, he's heading for the residences of the rich. Monkeybutt lives out this way, and a surge of hope rises in my chest. Well, that or heartburn. It's hard to tell the difference any more.
And by five o'clock everything's dead.
It's a bit of an exaggeration, it's actually only 01:35, but I'm tired and he's just stopped outside Monkeybutt's mansion. I'm praying that this is his next target and I know it's not. I also know I'm not apprehending him tonight, and the investigation is probably only just beginning.
And every third car is a cab.
Not that any of them will slow down enough for me to hijack them.
And ignorant people sleep in their beds like the doped white mice in the college lab.
They never let me near the animals in the biology lab, but that might be because they kicked me out of school when I was 13. When I protested that the law said I got schooling until I was 16 they faked my age and date of entry and told the janitor to call the police if I didn't leave then.
Enjoy your days off! I like your poem, it's lively and energetic and pulls the reader through. I think I've said that about a couple of them lately, so either you're using the same muse or you're developing a definite style. It works though, so I think it's a good thing either way!
Greg - no need to apologize :)
Ah, another continuation. Thank you for making catching up on comments so enjoyable!
I think I was listening to the radio a lot in my truck while at work, so there are various songs that inspired my style. They like to play the same songs many, many times each day, so it gets in my head.
In related news, I've left the radio off the last two days I worked and am feeling much better for it!
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