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SEPTIC TANK (IMAGERY IN POETRY - OLFACTORY)

Submitted by Tam the Chanter on Mon, 2012-03-12 16:26

SEPTIC TANK

He staggers blindly down the street, thick , grey fog swirls round.
The silence cheats him of his sense of hearing , not a sound .
He knows that if he uses the old walking stick he'd found
Then, like a blind man he could make his way

The bridge had washed away, now how to reach the other bank
He comes to the decision to cross by the septic tank
Knows he is near when all around him rises smell so rank
That he can feel his nose start to decay.

He taps the stick against a pipe, releasing gas, perturbed
When swinging stick to clear his way, he does not find the kerb
A careful waving all around finds nothing - that's absurd!
But scared of septic tank, he stands all day.

At last the fog lifts and he looks about his self-made plight.
To find the end had fallen off his stick, that serves him right.

Style / type: 
Structured: Western
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Editing stage: 
Editing - rough draft
Workshop: 
IMAGERY IN POETRY (for everyone)

Comments

Tam the Chanter

Mon, 2012-03-12 17:08

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tried to make it as smelly as possible

TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW, BUT FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA

author comment

scribbler

Mon, 2012-03-12 20:06

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I'll bet you're wondering why you have no comments from workshop participants? Maybe because you didn't include imagery workshop in title to make it easy to see this Is a shop poem! lol. Please edit so as to make it easier for fellow shoppers to spot. thanks........stan

Debra Bryant

Mon, 2012-03-12 20:16

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And it is too funny as well! Had a good laugh at the expense of your subject and his decaying nose. I think you did very well with olefactory imagery and I enjoyed the read.
Deb

China Blue

Tue, 2012-03-13 09:30

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I felt it lacked a bit more of the image you were given

Here each home has a septic tank that is buried with a leeching field( pipe with holes) to run the liquids off. When those get filled they must be pumped and boy you sure know when they need pumping.
So just saying the septic was rank falls short . How rank?
the rest of the poem is fine.
Chrys

Chrys
Let your mercy spill on all these burning hearts in hell(Leonard Cohen)

Nordic cloud

Tue, 2012-03-13 14:00

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I don't know what septic tanks you have, ours are underground,
difficult to envisage, but then we are supposed to smell it, well
part of it was smelly yes, it fits a category for me called narrative,
but that's not one of the image criteria.

At first i thought he had fainted due to the stink!
But he hadn't, perhaps he should'ave(!).

My septic tank, long ago, was emptied by the previous owner,
she shovelled it all out herself, under the hedge and the rhododendrons,
no wonder all the village comes to see them when in flower!

Nordic cloud.

"The image of yourself which you see in a mirror Is dead,
but the reflection of the moon on water, lives." Kenzan.

Tam the Chanter

Tue, 2012-03-13 16:17

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Only used in Scotland for isolated properties unable to connect into the main sewerage system.
Some of the older ones had a brick or stone-lined pit covered over by timbers which could be rotten. So perhaps the poem did not explain this too well. I based the poem on an old joke .

Ian

TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW, BUT FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA

author comment

scribbler

Tue, 2012-03-13 21:57

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The imagery of the smell rotting out your nose was like a hammer between the eyes lol. Only thing I can think to suggest would be to iclude a pleasant aroma such as the smell of newly washed grass as a comparison. Go ahead and gather a few more comments then start deciding whether your edit will be using same or different imagery.....stan

Geezer

Wed, 2012-03-14 16:44

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to have any meter at all, but the rhyming was excellent!
I thought that you fulfilled the guidelines well.

There were places here that were open cess-pools They were used to separate the effluent before it was pumped into the rivers. I remember one such place from my childhood. On the edge of town, the prevailing winds usually kept it from bothering the citizens, but sometimes the wind changed and then....Whew! I guess you could count them as septic-tanks.

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Barbara Writes

Wed, 2012-03-14 22:18

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olfactory, there is much to smell here
Learning a new word

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wesley snow

Fri, 2012-03-16 17:47

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A cess pool is a brick or rock lined open pit, a septic tank is enclosed entirely. We had a septic tank above ground at grandpa's farm in Mineral Wells. It worked extremely well and still reeked of effluvium.

I'm going to agree with Chrys here. Just saying that it smelled bad is not enough. We need something to compare it to that helps us understand how wretched it is. I always thought the septic smelled like grandpa, but that's another story.

W. H. Snow

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Tam the Chanter

Sat, 2012-03-17 07:23

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OK OK OK, it wasn't a septic tank, it was a cess pit. Mind you, that isn't a cess pool, either..................anyway

Olfactory imaging tough,
Septic tank didn't smell bad enough.
Should've used a cess pit
Overflowing with shit,
So goodbye !! (He's gone off in the Huff)

Ian

TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW, BUT FRUIT FLIES LIKE A BANANA

author comment

wesley snow

Sat, 2012-03-17 12:35

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What is the difference between a cess pit and a pool? wesley

W. H. Snow

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley

Learn how, teach others.
The NeoPoet Mentor Program
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scribbler

Sat, 2012-03-17 14:24

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A pit is usually evclosed on all sides except top by masonary. A pool is more or less a pond which may or may not be lined with a layer of impervios material such as clay. This is the type pool in which critics and politicians usually swim lmao............stan

scribbler

Fri, 2012-03-16 20:27

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I was actually expecting a larger variety of odors such as fresh bloowed flowers , or air cleaned by the storm. But that's just me and your approach works..........stan

Candlewitch

Sat, 2012-03-17 13:27

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I found your poem to be plenty smelly ;) and good rhymes, too!

always, Cat

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