Onward!

I've decided to continue with the blogging thing, despite the lack of need. Perhaps in one of my insane rambles, I will strike upon the idea which becomes the novel which makes me famous.


Today's insane ramble will be a most depressing poem. It will be depressing because I have to be "serious" and "relevant." I use this medium because otherwise I know I'll never start writing the thing. I'm intimidated by intensity.


But the main object of this assignment is to create a poem with the flow of regular speech, but with precision in word choices. For example, a poem we read in class used the phrase "Halloween orange." Not just regular orange, not even pumpkin orange, but Halloween orange. This invokes monsters, fright, and general horribleness mixed with an almost ghoulish glee because Halloween is a fun time (candy, costumes, we enjoy it) - which worked perfectly because the man was ghoulishly gleeful as he watched his house burn.

Let's just try this thing and see how it goes.


(Just so y'all know... This is not working... I'm staring at the blinking cursor and thinking to myself, what am I going to do? And I hate this chair. It's distractingly uncomfortable.)


Turning Off the Tap

Water leeches to my skin
As it floods in sudsy waves around my feet,
Ignoring the drain's inconsistent pull.
For Proust it was his "petites madeleines."
For me, it's this watery ankle-deep hell.
My eyes close and I remember
A childhood memory I tried to forget.
Grandmother's wrinkled hands clutching the faucet,
Turning off the tap,
Leaving barely an inch of tepid water
Skimming the base of the bathtub.
Any more and I might splash the floor:
A reprimand balanced on her tongue waiting for a reason,
Guilty before given the chance to be innocent.
But that's not quite right,
The immediate guilt
Glowering like a vulture on the showerhead,
Salivating in anticipation and leaving me
Drowned in a half inch of water.

(Done! And it only took me a week to write...)