Not Quite White Socks

NaPoWriMo 18 April: Today’s prompt is best explained on the NaPoWriMo page.

Basically, it’s to write a poem with the plot of an opera—or a piece of one—as you do—and include rhyme and unlikely scenes. Examples were given. I chose to work with “The Pirate” bySadakichi Hartmann…. (I’m waiting while you look at the poem…)

Now that you’ve peeked at Hartmann’s poem, you, too, surely translated the opening musical line—“Andante con grazia e molto maestoso”—as “at a walking pace, with grace, and very majestically,” and immediately realized it was really about clean white gym socks, right?

Not Quite White Socks by Elizabeth Boquet
after Sadakichi Hartmann’s “The Pirate” with apologies

The flooding dawns, cascades on a pair
  Of red gym socks in my machine of white.
    Only one will survive the coming storm,
      One will drown by morning light,
        And, despite bleach of might,
        None will ever be quite right again.

The flooding dawns, with it, sheet rain
  O’er the silent waters stray,
    As if to drench those whose holes
      Had ripped and frayed—
        Their rose of morn sniffed away
        To porous waste, now pinkish-grey
        Their musty smell—nay, stink--in cold cycle hell.

There the fight is on—
  With heels entangled and toes aflame,
    Enveloped in suds that tinge the lye,
      Two red socks, lashed fast together,
        Motionless on the crimson waters lie.

The flooding done, begin the roil,
  Rend the curtain of calm and mist
    Whence, stained with maelstrom.
      Apart, the pair of socks do drift—
        Away from their safe shores
          Where the other cannot be seen

As the machine screams,
  Her daily toil in quest of the spoiled,
    To chase away these wanderers of her clean sea—
      Her sea now rosy with froth and foam,
        Flushed with tints of reddish thread—
        Troubled waters for all the rest.

The fight is on—
   Spins the clank and fly of cyclone,
    The rattle of justice, empty of feet,
      Like the hissing groans of some storm accursed,
        With lightning flares and fanlike bursts,
          Pass shot and shell
          My white socks, straight to hell.

***

PS Just for fun, here’s a poem about socks that I wrote ages ago for our daughter, Olivia, when she moved into her first apartment…. I’m thinking just the first stanza is enough. How about you?

Lost Socks, by Elizabeth Boquet

Our family’s socks seem quite unaware
that they were designed to remain in pairs.
Leftover sock count when laundry is done:
“One…two! Two! One…two? Oh no. Just the one.”

 I’m sorry to say this state of affairs
will go on this way for years, years and years.
Choose one sock color, be it black or blue—
whichever will work the best with your shoes.

Photo by Andrew Valdivia on Unsplash