Drowning Man

[Robin]

Okay, so for English we chose ten words, four to describe a sneeze underwater (I chose bubbling, snorty, wet, and squelching), three colors (I chose red, blue, and green), and four words to describe what a cricket sounds like (light, dry, scratchy, reedy). We then had to write a poem based on those. I decided a collage would work best, with a ton of brief images that seem random but stem from that one image of a drowning man, or a man who sneezed underwater. I still don't know what I was thinking. Tell me what you think.

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The drowning man emits bubbles,
Squelching on the surface,
Wet,
Like the ears of a rock star:
Someday out of the blue,
He’ll be dripping red blood,
Sticky;
Mirroring the fury of a dance floor,
Graceful bodies whirling,
Twirling,
Sweating.
And underneath, a sandpaper dryness,
Light, somewhat itchy,
Leaving hives of a colossal degree,
Irritated, and scratchy;
Losing and bluesing,
A grasshopper’s life,
Singing reedy cricket songs
At seedy cricket throngs,
Crowds full of people.

Look at all the people!
How they gather to watch the drowning man!
Brows crinkling,
Consternated,
Green under the gray crust of the o-zone,
With their skin cancer shoulders,
All speckled and curling,
Crispy,
A lover’s cheeks, blushing,
Flushing,
A child in the heat,
Ice cream on the ground,
Melting,
Pepto-Bismol soaking into the concrete,
Pink into gray.
Someday out of the gray,
They turn and they see blue,
As if their love were new,
Hey lovers kiss in the street,
Let the drowning man die in peace.

And some girl laughs,
A fat one.
Jowls quivering, jelly,
Apricot jelly,
Sweet on the tongue,
Sour on the eyes,
An acid,
With the laugh a catalyst,
An echoing piggish sound,
Elegant in pink,
Elegant in Spandex,
Some odd dancer gone to seed,
Chunky bodies twirling,
Awkward,
Sweating,
Glistening,
Some exotic lapdance gone sour,
A lemon in the mouth,
With puckered lips,
All painted rouge.
How wonderful,
That the drowning man dies in peace.

[ScarletMornings]

whoa. so very random and strange, and yet i love all the imagery, all the topic jumps, the way you just go from one thing to another and like flash little pictures with every new word you say. it's very rapid and yet you see it clearly. strange and fantastic. very, very nice.

[Robin]

Thankee-sai.

Did you find the random 'rhymes' odd? People have commented on how they seem too awkward. In my defense, I wasn't aware I was doing them when I wrote it.

[Ramona]

I liked it, the "topic jumps (as ScarletMornings put it)" are cool. Though I wasn't fond of the random rhymings (though I have been known to do that, aslo.)

[ScarletMornings]

i personally am a big fan of random rhymes. to me, they seem to make the poem flow so much the better. great job.