The problem with elephants

is that they're just not poetic enough.

Pachyderm...oliphant...Loxodonta africana...Elephas maximus...

Even starlings can sound sexy in a poem.

But elephants..?

Poetic Roadkill (or Survival of the most poetic)

I'm having issues with Darwin; he dawdles across my mind every time I leave space for stray thoughts to come begging. I didn't invite him in and I don't know what he's doing there. He strides through grey matter, looking all beardy and talking about finches' beaks and giant tortoises. Sometimes he's joined by Mendel and Buckland, (the former looking monkish and the latter eating zebra roadkill). And then just when I think it can't possibly get any weirder, these group of misfits are joined by a chicken that, coincidentally, is crossing a synapse at the same time. It's most disconcerting.

Why did the..?



Chicken:
runt of the pterosaurs
you cross the road
without looking
left - or - right
No green cross code
A poultry with purpose
‘til the punch
line
strikes
children’s tarmac.
It’s no joke.
I blame Darwin, snitching on fossilized apartheid
so generations of bones
disowned their progeny. And you,
with your 20th century vocation
T. Rex would bite his opposing thumb
if evolution had granted him one
Such cold-blooded kin
surely it’s no surprise
why you
on a daily basis
commit occupational suicide

Progress Report

Ongoing homework: write a 2000-word short story (due end Nov)
write a poem of 20 lines (due Thurs next wk)
write a 1200-word first chapter of a novel (due Jan 2011)
read Margaret Attwood's book, The Handmaid's Tale (due Jan 2011)


Most difficult thing I've done this week: try to hate the Margaret Attwood book 'The Handmaids Tale'. I tried and tried. But it was really really really good. I shrivelled for nearly 2 hours in the bath so I could finish it.

Most progress made this week: someone is going to lend me Jane Austen DVDs so I don't have to read the books. Hallelujah!

Least progress made this week: the poem I've written for next week. Am completely rewriting it and - like the time I decided to sort the loft out - it's looking a lot worse than when I started tinkering with it.

Best displacement activity to avoid doing any writing: posting on both my blogs.

Help needed most: Any ideas for a first chapter of a novel? I had this urge to write about cheese, but I don't think I could squeeze a chapter out of it.


In the meantime, check out these great alternative ideas for xmas...
http://notwavingbutironing.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/place-your-christmas-orders-for-my-novelty-aprons/