For Poetry Thursday, I was inspired by the Completely And Totally Optional (CATO) prompt to write a poem based on your eavesdropping skills. This was a great coincidence as a hilarious overhead conversation occurred yesterday. Here goes:
Heard Under the Sycamores
-Julie Zaccone Stiller
Harried woman speaking loudly
energetically
emphatically
Gesturing randomly, wildly in the air
Details punctuated with finger jabs
that would leave bruises
She stalks around her parked SUV
pacing like a caged leopard
Still talking
Who is listening but us
we who hide in our reclined anonymity
We laugh conspiring like the crows
twirl our fingers next to our brains
"she's crazy" we hiss to one another
"I'm glad she divorced the bastard, he deserved it!"
she declaims
slamming the door as final punctuation
We giggle again, this time too loudly
She turns to our sound
suspiciously searching out the offenders
We are wrong once more
Headset in ear she stalks off
down the shaded street
Funny how poems can work when you just let them mirror what you see, or hear.
ReplyDeletetoo fun!
ReplyDeleteVery cool, Julie! That's a great take on the CATO prompt!
ReplyDeleteA fitting poem for the given propmt...enjoyed reading it...thanks for sharing..
ReplyDeleteYes, you did this theme well. Oh too often I've listened to folk like this on thier phones. So much hostility, at least that's what I read in your poem (her's).
ReplyDeleteseeings how i am married to the migrant poetry worker, i tend to have my fill of lines, but occassionally i read or hear something that hits home, whether it be laughter or heartache or memory. this is one of those.
ReplyDeleteand i'm sure my migrant poetry worker sometimes is a little over whelmed with his crafty missus and her pushy textiles.