Friday, October 19, 2007

Putty and Poetry Friday


This week, I've been preparing for a masquerade ball (we're having a birthday here) while simultaneously dealing with things such as:


  • the Pontiac (a beloved 15-year-old member of the family which the kids named Putty) is acting up
  • the van thinks it needs brake work
  • the furnace has stopped working (we don't really need it, but I want to know it's there)
  • the toilet is clogged
  • Ramona wants to paint. Now.
  • there will soon be a wedding in the family which will involve a fair amount of travel, the purchase of new clothes, depression about my hip size and careful route planning.
So, my poetry is a bit pedestrian today (and no, I really didn't mean to make such an awful pun.) It's about Putty.

Sigh.


Putty

Putty is fifteen
and he is tired.
He flashes frightening lights at me
randomly
in an effort to get my attention.
I drop him at the local clinic
only to have him sent home,
untreated,
the equivalent of taking
my sick child to the doctor
and being told
she needs only some rest.
I want him medicated
and well.
I want him for another fifteen years
(I love him so)
but know that I may
(one day soon?)
have to let him go.

Alas, poor Putty ...
a car of most infinite jest
most excellent fancy.
He has borne me on his back
a thousand times.

May it be a thousand more.
His flashing light may not
be the end?
For where there is light
there is hope.


The entire Poetry Friday round-up can be found at Kelly Fineman's Writing and Ruminating.

9 comments:

jama said...

OH,poor Putty! This is really sweet.

My husband's car,which I call "Shorty," almost got sold last year, because it had all kinds of expensive problems. But, like you, we are reluctant to see it go. "It's only metal," my husband says. Yeah, right.

Thanks for a unique poem!

Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle said...

Soooooo, what else is new Karen?
Just kidding. :)

God bless you in your "craziness!"
Donna

nutmeg said...

Very clever.

Happy Friday!

Sara said...

Okay, I'm giggling at your pun and your car's fabulous name. I'm sorry you're having troubles with Putty, but Alas, poor Putty, you are so fun to read about!

Jill said...

Yeah, hips. Childbirth does a little something to the size of them. :)

Suzanne Temple said...

Poor Putty. Perhaps he and "Zippy" my husband's very old and sorry sorry car could go down to that valley of no return together.

Friar Suppliers said...

Poor Putty. I feel your pain although your poem makes me giggle.

Anonymous said...

I love-love-love this post, and most of all, your poem. And most of all, these lines, and their Hamlet reference:

Alas, poor Putty ...
a car of most infinite jest
most excellent fancy.
He has borne me on his back
a thousand times.

Alice Gunther said...

Fantastic poem!