breakfast:
you cut the omelette
surgically
and insert the fork,
as if you would find a
treasure trove of theories
that could calculate your success.
as if.
from behind the counter
my lashes point at you
and sarcastically flicker
you really think you could find a golden egg
between the layers of an unborn hen
that has been cooked to satiate your hunger?
The manager pushed me to clean up your mess.
Wasn't I always?
your tutored pupils sucked in my breast
the moment I stood over you
but they seemed to be confused
when they were challenged to a game of checkers,
and they ran wild for a second till they caught
my eye
(let go of me!)
I snatched your glass and plate
as if to starve you of your desire,
only I was too late,
so I trudged to the kitchen
for my penance
I picked up the straw that you had discarded
and pierced the slice of lemon
freezing in the arctic cubes of your empty drink
and hugged the rind around my tongue
to alleviate its suffering,
and that was the first time I tasted your name,
but no matter how many spoonfuls I put
the sugar was still tasteless
tasteless,
like the small patch of beard
that you carried around
thinking so highly of yourself.
as if.
Author notes
Prompt: Enamoured, Sadistic
A contest entry
- really not for the weak: ultra-deluxe suicide-edition, parte deux. by Immortal Obscurity.
400 points, ended May 27, 18 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Critiques welcome!
Comments
1 - 7 of 7
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oooooh, this was sooooooo good!! it was just.... awesome! i loved the cadence, it all just bounced along in its own little kinda sad way....
and it fit perfectly with the prompt the judges gave you..... ^^
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Ohmygawwwd, thank you! You have no idea how happy I am that this isn't erotic. I knew you could do something amazing with those two words
Other than the 'as if' on the end, I see nothing wrong here. Then again, I am not an English major like Christie; she's probably picked up on a bunch of stuff I've missed. But I am still so glad to see a non-erotic, non-emo poem
Thank you for your entry
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When I saw you had re-opened this, I was like, "Oh, second opportunity doesn't come by that easy." So I tried my hand at the words you'd given me quite a while back. They'd been nagging me since!
It turned out to be this, unexpectedly. Yeah, even I was pretty surprised at the concept of this. Haha..
Oh, but I SO am not an erotic writer, and the abusive ones have bored me pretty much.
thanks loads!
Honored for the silver!
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randomly, i like how your background & font colours look like ten-year-old dried ketchup and dijon mustard, respectively. colours go well with the food references, they do.
i really like the way you've woven the phrase "as if" throughout this, but the first time you use it alone (eighth line, i think?) it feels tacked on and unnecessary, since you use it repeatedly elsewhere and it's not strong enough there to stand on its own. but that's just my humble opinion.
"but they seemed to be confused when
they were challenged to a game of checkers,
and they ran wild for a second till they
caught my eye
(let go of me!)"
love this, despite the nitpicking that will follow. the parethesied [not a real adjective] bit also felt unneeded. line breaks after "when" and "they" felt awkward; the latter could possibly sound better as "...second till they caught / my eye." that, i think, drags better along to the final line.
this was an oasis in a desert of shit, especially because you could have taken the "sadistic" prompt in a trite direction like abusive, masochistic erotica or something equally terrible. thank you for entering and for not sucking!
-endymion -
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oh, i love your description of the colour choice..
well, perhaps they are.. what else do you find in the kitchen when you're a dishwasher?
you know sometimes you hear that tiny voice at the back of your head that cracks stupid and wise comments just when you don't need them? it's that same voice.
nyehehe...
i have a MAJOR issue with line breaks.
if there were a class to attend that would teach me where best it would be to break the line, i would gladly enroll into it.
thanks for your advice though. i'm always open.
i would've shot myself before i let a prompt that was all too obvious made me write all too obvious.
thank you for the critique! i totally appreciate it!
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the line breaks in this are actually pretty good. i have the same problem with them as you say you do, although after having a poetry professor who is absolutely anal about line breaking, he made me more anal than he is about them. too bad he's retired; i'd refer you to him!
no problem! this was refreshing to read, and the conversational, simple tone took it far. -
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I wonder what his opinion of you would be now.
The next thing you know, you've ended up correcting HIS line breaks.
Thank you!
Honoured for the silver!
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