Continuing down memory lane
Dec. 30th, 2010 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alee_grrlThis second poem comes from the same time period at "The Matriarch." 2001 was a tough year, even prior to 9/11. In addition to being ill myself, my great aunt was dying at the same time. So I was spending a lot of time at the hospital, which is reflected in this next poem. Growing up I had seen a lot of ERs and hospital rooms due to my brother's severe asthma. There were many nights where he would have an attack so severe that the home nebulizer was not enough and off we would go to the ER.
This poem was my final assignment for Creative Writing. We were to write either a sonnet or a villanelle. I chose to write a sonnet written to voice the sense of helplessness and exhaustion that comes from spending too much time in hospital rooms. The idea came to me when I read T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, particularly the line "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons (line 51)." This line is what inspired the couplet, and thus the poem.
Measurability
Light gray walls, strewn with paintings gone unseen
encircle me. I walk through sliding doors.
Shoes squeak down silent halls, an old routine
recalled. The scent of lemon-fresh bleach bores
through nostrils covering the cloying scent
of death. I round the corner, past machines
with snacks. My stomach roils in discontent
as I recall how often I have seen
halls like these. Past the nurses station two
doors down I find room three-thirteen. I stand
a moment, letting thoughts still and subdue
themselves. One thought breaks off and then expands.
While Prufrock gauged his life with coffee spoons
I've measured mine in hopsitals' bland rooms.
This poem was my final assignment for Creative Writing. We were to write either a sonnet or a villanelle. I chose to write a sonnet written to voice the sense of helplessness and exhaustion that comes from spending too much time in hospital rooms. The idea came to me when I read T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, particularly the line "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons (line 51)." This line is what inspired the couplet, and thus the poem.
Measurability
Light gray walls, strewn with paintings gone unseen
encircle me. I walk through sliding doors.
Shoes squeak down silent halls, an old routine
recalled. The scent of lemon-fresh bleach bores
through nostrils covering the cloying scent
of death. I round the corner, past machines
with snacks. My stomach roils in discontent
as I recall how often I have seen
halls like these. Past the nurses station two
doors down I find room three-thirteen. I stand
a moment, letting thoughts still and subdue
themselves. One thought breaks off and then expands.
While Prufrock gauged his life with coffee spoons
I've measured mine in hopsitals' bland rooms.
