In which Your Humble Blogger shares one for all those who like to go people watching:
"Two Pots and a Kettle"
For one breathless hour
A woman at the next table
Waited for a snail
That had been sharing the glass top
To do something.
Finally, joy and laughter:
A quivering of its antennae
Suggested that it was happy
And at home next to the carnation.
"That woman is either a poet
Or a lunatic," said my friend.
And after an hour
And five minutes of saga,
We stood up and left.
* * *
I waver between being rolling my eyes at this poem and finding it mildly amusing.
Lots of writers get their ideas by going outside and talking to people. I believe I remember hearing that the comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis goes to the mall to get impressions of how people talk and gather snippets of dialogue. It makes me wonder who would be the more interesting to actually observe: the people who are out there living their lives, or the writers who are watching them live, making notes at certain moments that, for whatever reason, they find important.
Amusing. Definitely amusing.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, definitely a fertile field for inspiration -- I keep thinking I need to keep a little notebook in my purse to record random snippets of conversation, just for, y'know, amusement.