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Friday, April 09, 2010

Sour milk

Merry is the marionette,
almost a miniature man, who finds
his wires new-severed do flap
where once strum-tight they dictated
the when to fall octopus-limp
or to dance a sprightly jig
accompanied by silly jug tunes
he never even liked.

Stringlessness comes at a price.
On disjointed steps, Merry
would he have to make his own way
as an unprovided walker.
He sets out, philosophical
tomes in hand, for the wooded
fringes where a brook gurgles
and he'll grapple with consequence.

"I have a goodly appetite,"
Merry remarks. "I'll attack
these meaty words with fork and knife."
But the ideas do stew
and uncomfortably stowed
between Being and Nothingness,
Merry wonders whether freedom is
not what he bargained for.

Just then he's startled by the tug
of wires gone taut, and caught up
by the dangle of an enormous
eagle, its talons eagerly
trying to untangle the strings
of a new play thing. Merry
might have wept, but who could cry
over the spilling of sour milk?



It's day 9 of NaPoWriMo and things are getting a little complicated. The ReadWritePoem prompt is a mission with a few tricky steps. Click the link to see the list of ingredients that went into this confection.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

A Merry tale, Francis!

flaubert said...

Oh poor Merry! This is an excellent little story!
Pamela

Rallentanda said...

This is wonderful Francis and I love the reference to Sartre as well!

Francis Scudellari said...

@Derrick Not so merry for Merry :).

@Pamela Thanks... I do best with stories. Not so good with the love poetry.

@Rall Thanks, Jean-Paul infected me with his Being, and now I'm an unrepentant existentialist.