Saturday, April 29, 2017

PAD 29 - Catching up again - Distance of the Fall

For today’s prompt, write a metric poem. Most of the world uses the metric system to measure things out; not so much in the States. But there are meters and liters, and the occasional millimeters. Also, poetry uses metrics (the study of meter in poetry). And metrics, in a general sense, can measure various things by a common denominator–even inches and/or teaspoons.


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well the catch up poems are crap but at least i'm trying to fill in the blanks. so much to do always.

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Distance of the Fall



It was like any other time
though I was being photographed.

I was lifting and turning overhead
by the wall at first, around a crowd of people
occupied with games and each other.

One moment I was particularly elegant, using a stick
to propel me up with a graceful layout, slow motion flip.

I hoped that was caught on camera.
It likely was as a friend had tripod

with nine cameras, distributed around it a circle, catching everything.

But no one seemed to be looking as I jumped, like I do,
quite high, quite, quite high, straight up.

And then I landed on a wall, maybe 20 meters high.
That was a mistake.  I felt the spell broken.


It was a stone wall, maybe 20 meters high, a half a meter wide.
No one below seemed to know I was up there.

I wondered if I should jump down
but would my jumping magic work
if I started, as I was, dead weight from above?
I had never been in such a place before.


I imagined my legs, my spine, my head, broken.
I could see right where that would happen,

where the ground below became pavement.

It was high up, maybe 20 meters high.


And then someone else climbed up on top of the wall
and the wall itself descended.  Without a sound, with no one noticing.
This was the solution.

10 meters, 3 meters -  from there I could
drop and not die, even if I did not drift magically down
in a graceful layout, slow motion flip.

I dropped like anyone would.  Heavily, but fine.

My friend with the 360 degree camera cluster was gone.

I don't think anyone
caught the moment.













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