This poem is a can of soup,
But please don’t try to drink it.
It’s real, I guess, well, more or less.
Perhaps more less would be my guess,
So only try to think it.
Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar where Victoria C. Slotto hosts with the theme “Pop Art”. The can of soup refers to Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans to stay within the theme just in case it wasn’t obvious.
Bart looked left and right at the majestic Atlantic Ocean, the blue skies and hot sandy beaches. It was 90 degrees. He told the real estate agent, “I suppose if the global economy heats up so much that the ice caps melted then all of these high-rise condos would turn into part of the Everglades.”
“I’ve been waiting for it to happen for over two decades.”
“This place could sink into the ocean. I wonder who’d want to live here then?”
“I’m sure the alligators wouldn’t mind.”
Bart agreed with the agent: Better buy while the ground’s still dry.
Linked to Carrot Ranch. The theme this week for the 99-word stories is “without ice”.
Were I this bug I’d be wondering when that guy with the phone camera will find something better to do.
Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.
Being cats, being smart, his cats would
Run away since he’s up to no good.
“I’ll try mice! Ah! They squeak!
Now I won’t have to peek.”
Even mice ran when they understood.
Text: Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar. Bjorn is hosting with a call for poems using onomatopeia. I think “squeak” qualifies. Maybe “peek”? Reading Silver Gardenia’s poem “New Tricks” linked to Tuesday’s dVerse Poetics gave me the idea of associating mice rather than cats with Schrodinger.
Photos: “Incoming Storm”, above, “If the Mice Don’t Work Here are Some Geese”, below.
How will the people in your life be happy if you aren’t?
Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.
The chapel at the college Thomas and I attended had a storage room in its attic. Thomas and I went there one afternoon. We weren’t supposed to, but that made it all the more intriguing. There was enough light coming through a dirty window to see desks, equipment and oddly beds piled haphazardly around the walls. This dusty place made Thomas think of a tale of demon possession. He told stories well with facial expressions that kept my attention. The last sentence of his story, spoken while he looked suspiciously at me, was, “The devil could possess anyone.”
I say that was the last sentence, because at that point in the story, assuming there was more, a beetle, big and ugly, started bouncing up and down on the ceiling high above us. We thought the bug had gone bonkers. Besides, the bouncing was loud enough to stop Thomas from continuing his story with further hints of my being possessed by something or other. We looked up at the bug. Thomas looked at me. He had an idea. While the bug bounced up and down, up and down, Thomas cautiously crossed his two index fingers and raised his arms to target the noisy bug through them. The moment his eyes, the finger cross and that bug lined up so he could get a good shot—right at that moment—the bug soundlessly dropped to the floor.
RUNNING FROM THAT ROOM’S
SPOOKY SPRINGTIME BOUNCING BUG
BEETLE’S TURN TO SMILE
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Lillian is hosting. Haibun should have two paragraphs of prose about something that really happened. I can’t forget that bug. There should be a “kigo” on the second line of the haiku representing the season. Mine is “springtime”. The haiku should break in two parts at a “kiregi”. I think mine breaks between springtime and bouncing when attention shifts from us rushing out of that room to the smiling bug. By way of disclosure, neither of us went back to see if the bug was actually smiling. That’s just what I would do were I that bug and I assume only the prose part has to be factual.
Photos: “Upstairs Toward the Blue”, above, and “Climbing”, below.
