This week's Poetry Bus is driven by the disappearing Dana Bug. She gave us a few options, and I chose the photo with the frozen sofa.
A frozen flash memoir:
Sofa!
It was one long, snow-ful winter, and this sofa just had to go. The trash company promised to pick up the old worn out sofa... no problem... same time, too! Now, trash day arrived, and it was a balmy 45º. It seemed that everyone and their kin decided to take a stroll past the house with an old couch strategically placed on top of the piled snow right at the edge of the street. Hours passed slowly. That particular day, the trash truck didn't arrive until very late in the afternoon, yet each walker, runner, bike rider craned his/her neck to get a good view of this ugly piece of furniture, shifting as the snow pile melted. Ugh! An entire day of sheer embarrassment!
And here's a poem... but on another perception of the sofa in snow:
Genesis
Another one of those days!
But now she is home;
it would all be better.
Except it wouldn’t -
cold, ice cold, here, there.
Her thoughts darken:
nothing familiar about
their contrived door
through which she’d never
be granted permission to enter.
So she lay down her head
weary of the insanity
surrounded by frigid cruelty.
Even her warm tears,
now icicles crudely formed,
dangle precariously
from her drifting mind.
Then, a warmth envelops her
as she dies to surrender.
Then, a warmth envelops her
as she dies to surrender.
Jeanne I. Lakatos 2011
I love
ReplyDeletethe flash fiction - I'm still just amazed that the furniture is still sitting
there after weeks. Your poem touched on the same theme that mine did (except
mine is MUCH sillier) - being frozen out emotionally. That kind of frostbite
seems almost worse than the physical kind.
Thanks, Dana. Great prompts!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful sad poem, something we can all relate to.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Socks. After reading your comment, I could see more of the sadness in this poem, so I revised it a bit to be sure that it reflected my true intensions.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem, Jeanne Iris.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Karen.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious why your title indicates the beginning of things, and I reach out and embrace that warm surrender.
ReplyDeleteAh the embarrassment of old furniture - and yours is even shifting! Animation makes it that much worse - shows all the ugly sides and the abandonment. Enjoyed your fiction and your poem!
ReplyDeleteChris, by dying to surrender, one renews in autonomy.
ReplyDeleteAh Muse... if only it WERE fiction! Thanks for your kind words.
The poem is very subtle - frigid cruelty is a dreadful thing.
ReplyDeleteYes it is, Peter. Thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteThe last line is killer. No, seriously, it is.
ReplyDeleteAgree, Kat. Sometimes, we need to 'kill' certain toxins in our lives, don't we?
ReplyDeleteStory and a poem!Some lovely lines in the poem, I found it enigmatic (again!) and very sad. Really well written Jeanne.
ReplyDeleteThank you, TFE.
ReplyDelete