“Glue Trap” – Martian Poetry (Or Marital?) (Ha!)
DVerse Poets Pub has a “Meet the Bar” challenge, hosted by the wonderful poet Samuel Peralta, to write like a Martian; i.e. to look at one’s subject from an alien, or at least, different, perspective. Here’s mine:
Glue Trap
The lie of a long-term love
is like a mouse
caught in a glue trap. Even as
you don’t want to find it, you
want to find it–you have heard
its gnaw in the kitchen, behind
the bed, inside the baseboards,
for some time. Yet
once you catch a trace of its
stuck self–through a sidelong glance, a blur
of grey matting the glue–you
stand upon a chair, avert
your stare, splay legs,
hold arms akimbo, assume any
awkward stretch to reach
the cupboard, dish rack,
fridge, and avoid
dealing with it, until,
trying to swallow the tea that you’ve
just made from your frail perch, you gag
upon the taste of fur in your
throat, like the taste
of your own dark hair,
greying.
Torn now by the
squirm that flays even
as it makes its play
for escape, you bend down–
propping with some long-necked
implement and heavy mitts–
and drown that distended pulse,
at which point (as tiny dabs
of air and whatnot
surface), you realize,
mourning, that what’s died
was not like words at all.
PS – for something totally alien to the above, i.e. FUN, please please please check out my comic novel NOSE DIVE, a steal on Kindle for just 99 cents. (Slightly more but still a bargain in paperback.)
Explore posts in the same categories: iPad art, poetry, UncategorizedTags: Glue Trap poem, Karin Gustafson, manicddaily, Mouse Trap lost love poem, poem about lover lying
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ManicDDaily 
February 2, 2012 at 10:00 pm
You are so good. I can’t believe I’ve been missing you all this time. I’m so glad you hosted at dverse the other day. Now I can’t wait to read your poems.
This is an incredible comparison, particularly when you compare the mouse grey to our own greying hair.
And the two-sided emotions:
“you don’t want to find it, you
want to find it”
” you gag upon the taste of fur in your throat” … our senses are so strange, the way they intermingle and trick us
“Torn now by the
squirm that flays even
as it makes its play
for escape, you bend down” … To me, this has prayer in it. A hope of calming the squirm.
This is my favorite: “drown that distended pulse”
And this just kills me; so sad: “mourning, that what’s died
was not like words at all”
February 2, 2012 at 10:04 pm
Oh, Shawna, thanks so much. You are very kind.
February 2, 2012 at 10:36 pm
This turned out great… I love all the twisting and reaching, etc in the first verse as the truth is uncovered… from the second verse, I love this image:
you bend down–
propping with some long-necked
implement and heavy mitts–
and drown that distended pulse
February 2, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Thanks.
February 2, 2012 at 10:58 pm
this is great k…for one who struggled with the prompt early you knocked this out of the park…the opening sentence like a knife…great description of the mouse and how we try to avoid it as well…great last line too….
February 2, 2012 at 11:14 pm
That was almost like being there! I hate killing anything, but they’re vermin after all..ugh! Really well written!! Enjoyed it after all.
February 2, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Ha. I am a bit phobic, I confess.
February 2, 2012 at 11:28 pm
This is extreme writing… and fabulous! I found that the glue trap and the rodent metaphors made me squirm while I was reading, and that’s a sure sign that it has worked. Bookmark-worthy!
February 2, 2012 at 11:38 pm
Ha! Thank you for your wonderful article and prompt, and the great poems that you posted. It did force me to think farther afield. K.
February 2, 2012 at 11:54 pm
What a great way to describe a love gone awry. Your metaphor of the mouse on a glue trap is as creepy as that feeling must be, when one discovers the truth that’s been staring you in the face – or at least munching at the corners of consciousness. I think the idea of something like that is alien, and seeing it this way makes the its alienation very real and palpable.
February 3, 2012 at 3:29 am
When I was a kid, we lived in a house that had rats and we did use these glue traps. It is truly a dreadful thing to find a rat there in the morning. One wouldn’t see it otherwise, but one could hear it moving about at night. It’s a very good metaphor to use, talking about problems and suspicions that have long lingered in a relationship, gnawing in the dark, creeping about, giving bad taste to things. Really great write!
February 3, 2012 at 4:56 am
Wonderful stuff. My highest accolade (one of them!): I was disappointed when I go to the end.
February 3, 2012 at 7:35 am
I have but one word for the poem: GACK! (Not in reference to the writing, but the content! My coffee tastes terrible now!)
As for “Nose Dive”, I just finished it last night, and I loved it! And, that is saying something, since I DO NOT like musicals (guy thing) and had to kind of ignore the (singing). Sorry!
But the story was great, and your writing style was terrific!
The book is a page-turner–I read it in three nights–the characters are real, and the scenes are vivid!
As you can see, I am quite impressed, and this comes from an avid reader who is very selective about what he reads. I will be posting something on my blog and FB page about “Nose Dive”.
Just my two-pennies worth, but I think you should consider more stories about the adventures of Ms. Celia (and Hank).
Great job, Karin! Best wishes for success!
February 3, 2012 at 7:45 am
Dear Charles, First, I well understand the GACK!
Second, thanks so much re Nose Dive. I really appreciate your wading through the musical bits! I think it is a fun book and I’m so glad that you liked it. I have not been very good about marketing–I was sort of thrown off that track by my father’s death, which obviously was very disruptive on many levels, and I’ve been trying to both catch up at (real) work, and also meet a deadline for a very different novel, a kind of dark fantasy.
But I do like Celia (and Hank) and any ideas you can share re marketing would be greatly appreciated. Someone else mentioned sequels, so may think about that too.
Thanks again. K.
February 3, 2012 at 8:43 am
very cool metaphor here… wouldn’t have thought in this direction..but that’s maybe because i don’t yet think martian enough ..smiles.. cool take on the prompt k.
February 3, 2012 at 1:43 pm
“you gag
upon the taste of fur in your
throat, like the taste
of your own dark hair,
greying. ”
Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
February 3, 2012 at 2:58 pm
This was gruesomely creepy and repellent in all ways(subject wise) and brilliant language wise. Wise wise, too. ;_) I hate those things, but what a metaphor that glue trap makes. You are at the top of your already normally pretty lofty form here, K.
February 3, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Ha! Thankfully, I haven’t had to deal with these for some time. I’m a vegetarian/on the pacifist side/ so it was particularly grueling. In one apartment, I had little traps you caught live mice in – quite comical (given that I’m also a bit phobic!)
September 19, 2014 at 1:09 am
Somehow I got sent over to D’Verse today for what I thought was a new prompt, but I now realize it’s almost three years old!! Nonetheless, so glad I stumbled on this because it led me to this glue trap poem of yours and it is brilliant. Love the gagging on fur image and the metaphor throughout is spectacular. Excellent 🙂
September 19, 2014 at 5:52 am
Thanks so much, C.C. I had also completely forgotten about this one. Ha ! K.