The thorn in my eye makes it weep, not bleed. I cover it with my hand, to watch, one-eyed, a gigantic white-haired man who ages years as I look. When I can see again two-eyed – the barb withdrawn from an eye dimmed but not entirely wrecked – it is to observe glass flowers shatter in front of me, suddenly. This upsets me. I forget about the man who loomed so large; forget how, daily, hourly, he is shrinking even as I fail to watch.
[See revised version, posted 3 July 2024.]
The Na/GloPoWriMo prompt for day three was to write a surreal prose poem. It wasn't hard to find the material in the day I've had. To decode: friend drove me to another town to catch the movie The Trust Fall, about Julian Assange, on the big screen. I already understood his heroism, vilification and persecution, but this revealed it in horrifying detail. Grasses growing along the way activated my allergies; by the time we got there one eye was so sore and weeping, I had to watch the movie one-eyed. Home at last, my prescription drops eased the symptoms. I accidentally knocked one of my favourite glasses, incorporating a decoration of flowers, on to the floor, where it well and truly broke.
Belatedly combining the NaPoWriMo prompts with the Poem A Day prompts from Poetic Asides, I'm stretching things just a little to backtrack and make this one fit the PAD Day 5 prompt to write a poem with the title 'Tell — ' [and fill in the blank].
This reminded me of that philosophical question : "If a tree falls in the woods but there is nobody to hear it , does it still make a sound'.
ReplyDeleteThat's why we have to keep the eyes of the world on Assange's situation. And yet, so easy, caught up in our own concerns, to forget.
DeleteThe explanation made the poem easier to understand and appreciate. All's well that ends well. Glad your eye healed.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteLove it, sufficiently surreal😊
ReplyDeleteOh you did a really nice job here in giving a very surreal feeling (triggered and perhaps enhanced by your real experience) Hope all is well with your eye!
ReplyDeleteThings have settled down a bit, thanks.
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