Hotel
Now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Yesterday, we looked at a poem that used sound in a very particular way, to create a slow and mysterious feeling. Mark Bibbins’ poem, “At the End of the Endless Decade,” uses sound very differently, with less eerieness and more wordplay. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like Bibbins’, uses alliteration and punning. See if you can’t work in references to at least one word you have trouble spelling, and one that you’ve never quite been able to perfectly remember the meaning of.
Thick, hotel-room robe
TV blaring
flicking through channels
Searching for something in English
The sounds of foreign words somehow soothing
nonetheless
Voices that comfort after long flight
A strange theory about microbes
I met someone at a philosophy conference once
Who suggested that we are tired after a plane flight
In spite of not moving or exerting physical force
Due to the work our microbes were doing
To fight off the microbes of other passengers
I smiled and nodded, not quite sure
What a microbe was
I had a vague idea
It was a living thing
That I couldn't see
It had a job to do
And at the end of the day
Would take a bath And wear a robe
Invisible sliding things
or floating, or warring
or dividing, or performing
alchemy, converting matter into energy
or transporting
or signalling
or speaking in foreign tongues
Through a tinny, cheap TV speaker.
