“A Simple Thesis Poem”
Why did the chicken cross the road?
The age old question
To make a better life for zirself?
Did zir walk or perhaps run away from the flames that were on the other side?
We never talk about what zir found on the other side, thoroughly
Did this chicken find a message in a bottle telling them it will all be okay?
Or a worn down album from Sting and The Police?
Zir may stop to pick up the classic vinyl if zir found it laying on the busted sidewalk to listen to the poetry in their lyrics
The chicken makes it across the road
To pick up the record
To realize there is no record player to properly enjoy their poetry
Finding an old Gatorade bottle
The flavor Fierce Grape
Maybe purchased at Trader Joes
The Mecca of grocery stores
Thoughts of childhood soccer games
Slightly dramatic
And traumatic running through their brain waves
Zirs thirst no longer quenched
Remembering to be kind to the earth that continues to hold zirself up day and night
Throwing it away in the waste basket adjacent to where they found that fiercely delicious poetry created by the Police
That does not sting
Zir notices a couple holding hands
Within one block their hand lock changes several times
Are they trying to find comfort in how they show affection?
Can they not comfortably hold hands because their love has become less delicious?
Did their love get too close to the sun like Icarus’s wings?
Will their love melt back into each other or into other’s hearts?
We will never know the answers to all these questions
We will never know why the chicken truly crossed the road
What we do know is this
Zir chicken struts across the road to pen poetry for zirself
Zir chooses to share their poetry with everyone else
In time
On zir terms
Not to impress
Or be cohesive
Simply to get through another day
Deciphering messages found in other’s poetry and empty Gatorade bottles…(Panku)
© Elizabeth Sophia Strauss
In 2006, an elementary school girl from Kagoshima, Japan, and her friends dropped messages in bottles into the ocean as a graduation celebration. Little did she know that her message would be found by a sailor in Kauai, Hawaii, five years later.
Read more about the incredible story at Bytmarks.
This captain is going down with his ship
Of course I have thought about ditching and abandoning
But I guess it’s seen as better if you just sink with your heart,
When you know you’ve failed
I am superman
I am a man of steel
I am a king
Of course I'm scared
But “Even if all you do is fail, then fail and fail again”
I'm climbing a ladder and I'm scared I won’t be able to get back down
Once I make it to the top I must brace myself for the dreaded fall
I am scared
I am not shore
I am crazy within my idiocy
I must do what floats my boat
My life is a sinking ship, not Noah’s Ark
And I can’t find the life boats
Or the flare
I am an iceberg
I am a rock
I am an island
I am sinking on the quicksand of confusion from the ship of Theseus
I should hold my breath
And put a message in a bottle
That won’t make it back to land in time
Dit dit dit
Da da da
Dit dit dit