After lunch, uncle Kasimir grew restless
and paced to and fro, so much so that we
had no choice but to put him up for adoption.
The mountains were vibrating so violently
it was as if they were laughing at us
and we weren't in on the joke.
The Emperor stopped and stood gazing at the ocean.
So this is the edge of darkness, he thought,
my reign of terror is at its end.
Thank you, he said, as the waves engulfed him.
The cartoon mouse is running in place,
the moment before the mad dash.
I've looked and looked
but where have all the songbirds gone?
Friends, I don't know how to hold still.
They spent the whole summer at the famous
Banff Springs Hotel, for the good air,
on the advice of their doctors.
Blindfolded before the firing squad, I realized,
my lost luggage was the least of my problems.
Ding, went the fasten seatbelt sign. Ding,
goes the hotel service bell.
Nothing says inevitability like
standing in the path of a moving train.
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4 comments:
greg-o - A lot of neat things happening in this poem. You put your subjects in specific places and root them there against their will. The hotel, the ocean, running in place, a place for lunch, a train track. It's cool to see what occurs when these characters, can I call them that?, are left in these places alone. You write: "Friends, I don't know how to hold still" (i like this line). I especially like this line because the rest of the poem sort of springs from this question, the question of not staying in one place or being held in one place to exhaustion (i.e getting hit by a train)). I must admit though, I pulled a mighty Zapruder move and read this puppy forewards AND backwards. It works in the reverse and I got excited by this. Are you opposed to such bottleneck logic? Try it yourself? Also how do you feel about the revealing of the "songbirds" line? You can reply here or elsewhere. yours, mollye.
(and we weren't in on the joke.)
--I would take this bit out
The Emperor stopped and stood gazing at the ocean.
– I was happy to see the Emperor introduced!
Thank you, he said, as the waves engulfed him.
– Great 2
I've looked and looked
but where have all the songbirds gone?
Friends, I don't know how to hold still.
They spent the whole summer at the famous
Banff Springs Hotel, for the good air,
on the advice of their doctors.
-- Great 3
Ding, went the fasten seatbelt sign. Ding,
goes the hotel service bell.
.
-- Great 4
This is rad. I love the movement from image to image. Two comments:
1.) my lost luggage was the least of my problems.
Lost seems almost redundant. Just "my luggage was the least of my problems" achieves the same thing, and is funnier.
2.) A new end is needed! I thought about just cuttin' the last two lines, but it needs something there.
Otherwise, it feels done.
I know I'm backtracking but I just wanted to put it out there that I wrote this poem pre-Birdsongs of America.
Can you say foreshadowing???
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