ManicDDaily

To you, who likes William Carlos Williams and other Imagists–
One Way (of Undoubtedly Many)
That I Am Different From Them

I can’t write simply
about a red wheel barrow, glazed
with rain, and the plain so-much
that depends upon it.

Too much is appended to
my red wheel barrow.
Though its front tire is uninflatably flat,

it still carts
a chimera, shaped, while you protest
the extra effort required in
my lurching slog, by your endless searches
for the right tool, pot lid that
fits tight, true fix

while I’m fixated on moving
damp leaf mulch right
this minute.

And, in its undelayed but belaying veer
to its rain-glazed side,
may be found my pride
in poor but immediate equipage, my age-old
reliance on a single
serrated knife, pot metal spoon, whatever tilting top
or melt-handled spatula
comes to hand.

All this and more bellies
its red basin–the scratches already
on my new camera, your attention
to socks, and–yes, I know of it–your secret seasoning
of my cast iron–

huff-puff being the thing itself for me,
while you, who urge the purchase soon
of some new barrow, possibly blue,
sigh,
then, as if much depended upon it,
put another shoulder to
the wheels.

********************

Agh! Drafty sort of poem for Kerry O’Connor’s Prompt on William Carlos Williams that was part of Margaret Bednar’s Real Toads “Play it Again, Sam.”  I am linking on Real Toads Open Platform.   (Based on Williams’ poem about “The Red Wheelbarrow.”

I know the pic doesn’t exactly fit, but am not in a situation to put in a better.  And I rather like the poor weeding elephant.  Thanks! k.