I have a poetry problem.  I like some poetry, and I respect some poets, and if you like and/or write poetry, I have no quarrel with you or your poetry.  One of my best friends writes poetry, and one of my favorite authors (L. M. Montgomery) preferred writing poetry to prose.

But.  Maybe I had too much poetry pushed on me in classes, or maybe it was being pushed by teachers who went a little too far about the deep symbolism.  Or maybe I just have free verse issues.  Because my problem is, far too often I look at poetry, and can’t quite shake the feeling that someone threw meaningless words onto a page, made up something that sounded deep, let other people guess at other deep meanings, and then sat back and grinned while people raved about the symbolism.  I know it probably isn’t true most of the time…but I have this sneaking feeling it is true more often than the literary world wants to admit.

So, from this feeling, I decided to play a bit one day.  And I wrote a poem where I deliberately took memories from what was in fact one of the best ten days of my life, and tried to make it sound as solemn and dark and deep as I could.  Every line is a specific memory.  I just turned things around a little.  For example…I neglected to make it clear that when we collapsed halfway up a flight of stairs, it was because we were laughing.  Or that the “walk of horrible murders” was a “Jack the Ripper tour” and the “thousand graves” refers to Westminster Abbey.

So here’s my deep, dark, grim poem about my absolutely wonderful school trip to England during high school.  Which technically makes this not fiction, but never mind that.

***********************

Do You Remember England?

I remember glittering gems in locked cases,
Guards in gleaming red coats,
Lofty towers and small cells.
I remember stealing money from a fountain.

I remember food with too much sugar,
A boating accident that didn’t happen,
Hundreds of eyes in hundreds of faces.
I remember walking past shining windows and buying nothing.

I remember a boy frozen in stone,
A stone spire, slightly tilted,
Massive shapes, ancient gray stones.
I remember looking at a stone statue looking at me.

I remember a walk of horrible murders,
A thousand graves,
An admiral on a pedestal reaching to the sky.
I remember collapsing halfway up a flight of stairs.

I remember a city of tents.
Small birds pecking at crumbs.
Crumbling columns and algae-strewn water.
I remember sleeping curled up on the floor.