High Rise

WEDNESDAY POETRY PROMPTS
http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2011/02/16/WednesdayPoetryPrompts123.aspx


HIGH RISE

Say the word 'isolation' and picture a desert isle

Where you might go and vegetate in freedom for a while.

Say the word 'isolation' and picture an astronaut

Surrounded by stars and planets and equipment of every sort.

*

Then say the word 'isolation' and picture something demeaning.

Imagine a life restricted and devoid of personal meaning.

Maybe there are 'isolates' who enjoy their high-rise living;

Maybe they spurn the life 'downstairs', and find it unforgiving.

But what of Charlie, the pensioner, with a family that's scattered;

Everything being in the past, everything that's mattered?

He says 'I don't go out much. It's too far to the lift;

So I stay here in my own four walls. Don't think I'll ever shift.'

And what of Melanie, the girl who fancied city life;

Who thought she'd find her Mr Right and become a happy wife?

She says 'I'm over thirty now; I haven't any friends;

It's nothing but work and travel and here's where each day ends.'

*

And what of Kylie, the Mother, the saddest case of all,

With no-one to talk to but toddlers, who drive her up the wall?

She's three little ones to care-for and she lives on the fifteenth floor.

No wonder she sometimes asks herself 'What on earth is it all for?

I can take the kids to the playground, but to get there is a pain,

And no sooner are we all downstairs than we're toiling up again.

I must wrap them in their winter clothes, and they squabble and they fight;

I can't be bothered about myself; I always look a sight.

The pram, with little Sunday in it is difficult to budge,

Sometimes there's no room in the lift; it's very hard to judge.

It's all too tough! If we don't go out the kids just scrap and bawl!

Then there's the shopping. Bloody Hell! I'm going up the wall!'

*

That, my friends, is 'isolation'; there's nothing 'splendid' about it!

Many , many people say

'I'd love to live without it.'

*

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IT'S IN THE BOOK

A custom sadly lost.
*
The Family Bible
Contained
The Word Of God.
(So they said).
*
But, for me,
Its charm lay in
The Family Histories
On the fly-leaves.
*
I can click, of course.
I can peck my way
Through internet details.
*
But can any click
Bring the magic of faded ink?
*
The paper I touch,
Old, faintly dusty and perfumed by time,
Has been touched by the Writer!
That must mean something.
*
The shaky handwriting
Has come into being
At the behest of an old hand.
Even then
It must have been the elderly
Who cared about posterity.
*
The birth of the twelfth child!
The marriage of a spinster daughter!
The death of a Great Aunt!
Details
Recorded but once.
But for all time.
*
And, as they wrote
They saw themselves mirroring
The Hand of God himself,
Who was, at that moment,
Keeping his own records.
*
It said so
In The Good Book.
*